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Actus Quintus. Scena Prima. Enter with Drumme and Colours, Edmund, Regan. Gentlemen, and Souldiers. Bast. Know of the Duke if his last purpose hold, Or whether since he is aduis'd by ought To change the course, he's full of alteration, And selfereprouing, bring his constant pleasure Reg. Our Sisters man is certainely miscarried Bast. 'Tis to be doubted Madam Reg. Now sweet Lord, You know the goodnesse I intend vpon you: Tell me but truly, but then speake the truth, Do you not loue my Sister? Bast. In honour'd Loue Reg. But haue you neuer found my Brothers way, To the fore-fended place? Bast. No by mine honour, Madam Reg. I neuer shall endure her, deere my Lord Be not familiar with her Bast. Feare not, she and the Duke her husband. Enter with Drum and Colours, Albany, Gonerill, Soldiers. Alb. Our very louing Sister, well be-met: Sir, this I heard, the King is come to his Daughter With others, whom the rigour of our State Forc'd to cry out Regan. Why is this reasond? Gone. Combine together 'gainst the Enemie: For these domesticke and particular broiles, Are not the question heere Alb. Let's then determine with th' ancient of warre On our proceeding Reg. Sister you'le go with vs? Gon. No Reg. 'Tis most conuenient, pray go with vs Gon. Oh ho, I know the Riddle, I will goe. Exeunt. both the Armies. Enter Edgar. Edg. If ere your Grace had speech with man so poore, Heare me one word Alb. Ile ouertake you, speake Edg. Before you fight the Battaile, ope this Letter: If you haue victory, let the Trumpet sound For him that brought it: wretched though I seeme, I can produce a Champion, that will proue What is auouched there. If you miscarry, Your businesse of the world hath so an end, And machination ceases. Fortune loues you Alb. Stay till I haue read the Letter Edg. I was forbid it: When time shall serue, let but the Herald cry, And Ile appeare againe. Enter. Alb. Why farethee well, I will o're-looke thy paper. Enter Edmund. Bast. The Enemy's in view, draw vp your powers, Heere is the guesse of their true strength and Forces, By dilligent discouerie, but your hast Is now vrg'd on you Alb. We will greet the time. Enter. Bast. To both these Sisters haue I sworne my loue: Each iealous of the other, as the stung Are of the Adder. Which of them shall I take? Both? One? Or neither? Neither can be enioy'd If both remaine aliue: To take the Widdow, Exasperates, makes mad her Sister Gonerill, And hardly shall I carry out my side, Her husband being aliue. Now then, wee'l vse His countenance for the Battaile, which being done, Let her who would be rid of him, deuise His speedy taking off. As for the mercie Which he intends to Lear and to Cordelia, The Battaile done, and they within our power, Shall neuer see his pardon: for my state, Stands on me to defend, not to debate. Enter.

Edmund and Regan are speaking, and Regan asks Edmund if he loves Goneril. He answers that he does, and Regan is disappointed. The Duke of Albany and Edmund decide to join forces against the invading French army when Edgar comes to them dressed in his disguise and gives a paper to Albany. Edmund enters and gives another paper to Albany all the while, trying to figure out which sister he will choose since he's sworn his love to both. He decides to wait until the battle is over, and unlike Albany intends to show no mercy to Cordelia or Lear

summary

Scena Secunda. Alarum within. Enter with Drumme and Colours, Lear, Cordelia, and Souldiers, ouer the Stage, and Exeunt. Enter Edgar, and Gloster. Edg. Heere Father, take the shadow of this Tree For your good hoast: pray that the right may thriue: If euer I returne to you againe, Ile bring you comfort Glo. Grace go with you Sir. Enter. Alarum and Retreat within. Enter Edgar. Edgar. Away old man, giue me thy hand, away: King Lear hath lost, he and his Daughter tane, Giue me thy hand: Come on Glo. No further Sir, a man may rot euen heere Edg. What in ill thoughts againe? Men must endure Their going hence, euen as their comming hither, Ripenesse is all come on Glo. And that's true too. Exeunt.

Edgar drags his father along and tells him that the French army has been defeated, and Cordelia and Lear wear captured

summary

Scena Tertia. Enter in conquest with Drum and Colours, Edmund, Lear, and Cordelia, as prisoners, Souldiers, Captaine. Bast. Some Officers take them away: good guard, Vntill their greater pleasures first be knowne That are to censure them Cor. We are not the first, Who with best meaning haue incurr'd the worst: For thee oppressed King I am cast downe, My selfe could else out-frowne false Fortunes frowne. Shall we not see these Daughters, and these Sisters? Lear. No, no, no, no: come let's away to prison, We two alone will sing like Birds i'th' Cage: When thou dost aske me blessing, Ile kneele downe And aske of thee forgiuenesse: So wee'l liue, And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh At gilded Butterflies: and heere (poore Rogues) Talke of Court newes, and wee'l talke with them too, Who looses, and who wins; who's in, who's out; And take vpon's the mystery of things, As if we were Gods spies: And wee'l weare out In a wall'd prison, packs and sects of great ones, That ebbe and flow by th' Moone Bast. Take them away Lear. Vpon such sacrifices my Cordelia, The Gods themselues throw Incense. Haue I caught thee? He that parts vs, shall bring a Brand from Heauen, And fire vs hence, like Foxes: wipe thine eyes, The good yeares shall deuoure them, flesh and fell, Ere they shall make vs weepe? Weele see 'em staru'd first: come. Enter. Bast. Come hither Captaine, hearke. Take thou this note, go follow them to prison, One step I haue aduanc'd thee, if thou do'st As this instructs thee, thou dost make thy way To Noble Fortunes: know thou this, that men Are as the time is; to be tender minded Do's not become a Sword, thy great imployment Will not beare question: either say thou'lt do't, Or thriue by other meanes Capt. Ile do't my Lord Bast. About it, and write happy, when th'hast done, Marke I say instantly, and carry it so As I haue set it downe. Exit Captaine. Flourish. Enter Albany, Gonerill, Regan, Soldiers. Alb. Sir, you haue shew'd to day your valiant straine And Fortune led you well: you haue the Captiues Who were the opposites of this dayes strife: I do require them of you so to vse them, As we shall find their merites, and our safety May equally determine Bast. Sir, I thought it fit, To send the old and miserable King to some retention, Whose age had Charmes in it, whose Title more, To plucke the common bosome on his side, And turne our imprest Launces in our eies Which do command them. With him I sent the Queen: My reason all the same, and they are ready To morrow, or at further space, t' appeare Where you shall hold your Session Alb. Sir, by your patience, I hold you but a subiect of this Warre, Not as a Brother Reg. That's as we list to grace him. Methinkes our pleasure might haue bin demanded Ere you had spoke so farre. He led our Powers, Bore the Commission of my place and person, The which immediacie may well stand vp, And call it selfe your Brother Gon. Not so hot: In his owne grace he doth exalt himselfe, More then in your addition Reg. In my rights, By me inuested, he compeeres the best Alb. That were the most, if he should husband you Reg. Iesters do oft proue Prophets Gon. Hola, hola, That eye that told you so, look'd but a squint Rega. Lady I am not well, else I should answere From a full flowing stomack. Generall, Take thou my Souldiers, prisoners, patrimony, Dispose of them, of me, the walls is thine: Witnesse the world, that I create thee heere My Lord, and Master Gon. Meane you to enioy him? Alb. The let alone lies not in your good will Bast. Nor in thine Lord Alb. Halfe-blooded fellow, yes Reg. Let the Drum strike, and proue my title thine Alb. Stay yet, heare reason: Edmund, I arrest thee On capitall Treason; and in thy arrest, This guilded Serpent: for your claime faire Sisters, I bare it in the interest of my wife, 'Tis she is sub-contracted to this Lord, And I her husband contradict your Banes. If you will marry, make your loues to me, My Lady is bespoke Gon. An enterlude Alb. Thou art armed Gloster, Let the Trumpet sound: If none appeare to proue vpon thy person, Thy heynous, manifest, and many Treasons, There is my pledge: Ile make it on thy heart Ere I taste bread, thou art in nothing lesse Then I haue heere proclaim'd thee Reg. Sicke, O sicke Gon. If not, Ile nere trust medicine Bast. There's my exchange, what in the world hes That names me Traitor, villain-like he lies, Call by the Trumpet: he that dares approach; On him, on you, who not, I will maintaine My truth and honor firmely. Enter a Herald. Alb. A Herald, ho. Trust to thy single vertue, for thy Souldiers All leuied in my name, haue in my name Tooke their discharge Regan. My sicknesse growes vpon me Alb. She is not well, conuey her to my Tent. Come hither Herald, let the Trumpet sound, And read out this. A Trumpet sounds. Herald reads. If any man of qualitie or degree, within the lists of the Army, will maintaine vpon Edmund, supposed Earle of Gloster, that he is a manifold Traitor, let him appeare by the third sound of the Trumpet: he is bold in his defence. 1 Trumpet. Her. Againe. 2 Trumpet. Her. Againe. 3 Trumpet. Trumpet answers within. Enter Edgar armed. Alb. Aske him his purposes, why he appeares Vpon this Call o'th' Trumpet Her. What are you? Your name, your quality, and why you answer This present Summons? Edg. Know my name is lost By Treasons tooth: bare-gnawne, and Canker-bit, Yet am I Noble as the Aduersary I come to cope Alb. Which is that Aduersary? Edg. What's he that speakes for Edmund Earle of Gloster? Bast. Himselfe, what saist thou to him? Edg. Draw thy Sword, That if my speech offend a Noble heart, Thy arme may do thee Iustice, heere is mine: Behold it is my priuiledge, The priuiledge of mine Honours, My oath, and my profession. I protest, Maugre thy strength, place, youth, and eminence, Despise thy victor-Sword, and fire new Fortune, Thy valor, and thy heart, thou art a Traitor: False to thy Gods, thy Brother, and thy Father, Conspirant 'gainst this high illustrious Prince, And from th' extremest vpward of thy head, To the discent and dust below thy foote, A most Toad-spotted Traitor. Say thou no, This Sword, this arme, and my best spirits are bent To proue vpon thy heart, where to I speake, Thou lyest Bast. In wisedome I should aske thy name, But since thy out-side lookes so faire and Warlike, And that thy tongue (some say) of breeding breathes, What safe, and nicely I might well delay, By rule of Knight-hood, I disdaine and spurne: Backe do I tosse these Treasons to thy head, With the hell-hated Lye, ore-whelme thy heart, Which for they yet glance by, and scarcely bruise, This Sword of mine shall giue them instant way, Where they shall rest for euer. Trumpets speake Alb. Saue him, saue him. Alarums. Fights. Gon. This is practise Gloster, By th' law of Warre, thou wast not bound to answer An vnknowne opposite: thou art not vanquish'd, But cozend, and beguild Alb. Shut your mouth Dame, Or with this paper shall I stop it: hold Sir, Thou worse then any name, reade thine owne euill: No tearing Lady, I perceiue you know it Gon. Say if I do, the Lawes are mine not thine, Who can araigne me for't? Enter. Alb. Most monstrous! O, know'st thou this paper? Bast. Aske me not what I know Alb. Go after her, she's desperate, gouerne her Bast. What you haue charg'd me with, That haue I done, And more, much more, the time will bring it out. 'Tis past, and so am I: But what art thou That hast this Fortune on me? If thou'rt Noble, I do forgiue thee Edg. Let's exchange charity: I am no lesse in blood then thou art Edmond, If more, the more th'hast wrong'd me. My name is Edgar and thy Fathers Sonne, The Gods are iust, and of our pleasant vices Make instruments to plague vs: The darke and vitious place where thee he got, Cost him his eyes Bast. Th'hast spoken right, 'tis true, The Wheele is come full circle, I am heere Alb. Me thought thy very gate did prophesie A Royall Noblenesse: I must embrace thee, Let sorrow split my heart, if euer I Did hate thee, or thy Father Edg. Worthy Prince I know't Alb. Where haue you hid your selfe? How haue you knowne the miseries of your Father? Edg. By nursing them my Lord. List a breefe tale, And when 'tis told, O that my heart would burst. The bloody proclamation to escape That follow'd me so neere, (O our liues sweetnesse, That we the paine of death would hourely dye, Rather then die at once) taught me to shift Into a mad-mans rags, t' assume a semblance That very Dogges disdain'd: and in this habit Met I my Father with his bleeding Rings, Their precious Stones new lost: became his guide, Led him, begg'd for him, sau'd him from dispaire. Neuer (O fault) reueal'd my selfe vnto him, Vntill some halfe houre past when I was arm'd, Not sure, though hoping of this good successe, I ask'd his blessing, and from first to last Told him our pilgrimage. But his flaw'd heart (Alacke too weake the conflict to support) Twixt two extremes of passion, ioy and greefe, Burst smilingly Bast. This speech of yours hath mou'd me, And shall perchance do good, but speake you on, You looke as you had something more to say Alb. If there be more, more wofull, hold it in, For I am almost ready to dissolue, Hearing of this. Enter a Gentleman. Gen. Helpe, helpe: O helpe Edg. What kinde of helpe? Alb. Speake man Edg. What meanes this bloody Knife? Gen. 'Tis hot, it smoakes, it came euen from the heart of- O she's dead Alb. Who dead? Speake man Gen. Your Lady Sir, your Lady; and her Sister By her is poyson'd: she confesses it Bast. I was contracted to them both, all three Now marry in an instant Edg. Here comes Kent. Enter Kent. Alb. Produce the bodies, be they aliue or dead; Gonerill and Regans bodies brought out. This iudgement of the Heauens that makes vs tremble. Touches vs not with pitty: O, is this he? The time will not allow the complement Which very manners vrges Kent. I am come To bid my King and Master aye good night. Is he not here? Alb. Great thing of vs forgot, Speake Edmund, where's the King? and where's Cordelia? Seest thou this obiect Kent? Kent. Alacke, why thus? Bast. Yet Edmund was belou'd: The one the other poison'd for my sake, And after slew herselfe Alb. Euen so: couer their faces Bast. I pant for life: some good I meane to do Despight of mine owne Nature. Quickly send, (Be briefe in it) to'th' Castle, for my Writ Is on the life of Lear, and on Cordelia: Nay, send in time Alb. Run, run, O run Edg. To who my Lord? Who ha's the Office? Send thy token of repreeue Bast. Well thought on, take my Sword, Giue it the Captaine Edg. Hast thee for thy life Bast. He hath Commission from thy Wife and me, To hang Cordelia in the prison, and To lay the blame vpon her owne dispaire, That she for-did her selfe Alb. The Gods defend her, beare him hence awhile. Enter Lear with Cordelia in his armes. Lear. Howle, howle, howle: O you are men of stones, Had I your tongues and eyes, Il'd vse them so, That Heauens vault should crack: she's gone for euer. I know when one is dead, and when one liues, She's dead as earth: Lend me a Looking-glasse, If that her breath will mist or staine the stone, Why then she liues Kent. Is this the promis'd end? Edg. Or image of that horror Alb. Fall and cease Lear. This feather stirs, she liues: if it be so, It is a chance which do's redeeme all sorrowes That euer I haue felt Kent. O my good Master Lear. Prythee away Edg. 'Tis Noble Kent your Friend Lear. A plague vpon you Murderors, Traitors all, I might haue sau'd her, now she's gone for euer: Cordelia, Cordelia, stay a little. Ha: What is't thou saist? Her voice was euer soft, Gentle, and low, an excellent thing in woman. I kill'd the Slaue that was a hanging thee Gent. 'Tis true (my Lords) he did Lear. Did I not fellow? I haue seene the day, with my good biting Faulchion I would haue made him skip: I am old now, And these same crosses spoile me. Who are you? Mine eyes are not o'th' best, Ile tell you straight Kent. If Fortune brag of two, she lou'd and hated, One of them we behold Lear. This is a dull sight, are you not Kent? Kent. The same: your Seruant Kent, Where is your Seruant Caius? Lear. He's a good fellow, I can tell you that, He'le strike and quickly too, he's dead and rotten Kent. No my good Lord, I am the very man Lear. Ile see that straight Kent. That from your first of difference and decay, Haue follow'd your sad steps Lear. You are welcome hither Kent. Nor no man else: All's cheerlesse, darke, and deadly, Your eldest Daughters haue fore-done themselues, And desperately are dead Lear. I so I thinke Alb. He knowes not what he saies, and vaine is it That we present vs to him. Enter a Messenger. Edg. Very bootlesse Mess. Edmund is dead my Lord Alb. That's but a trifle heere: You Lords and Noble Friends, know our intent, What comfort to this great decay may come, Shall be appli'd. For vs we will resigne, During the life of this old Maiesty To him our absolute power, you to your rights, With boote, and such addition as your Honours Haue more then merited. All Friends shall Taste the wages of their vertue, and all Foes The cup of their deseruings: O see, see Lear. And my poore Foole is hang'd: no, no, no life? Why should a Dog, a Horse, a Rat haue life, And thou no breath at all? Thou'lt come no more, Neuer, neuer, neuer, neuer, neuer. Pray you vndo this Button. Thanke you Sir, Do you see this? Looke on her? Looke her lips, Looke there, looke there. He dies. Edg. He faints, my Lord, my Lord Kent. Breake heart, I prythee breake Edg. Looke vp my Lord Kent. Vex not his ghost, O let him passe, he hates him, That would vpon the wracke of this tough world Stretch him out longer Edg. He is gon indeed Kent. The wonder is, he hath endur'd so long, He but vsurpt his life Alb. Beare them from hence, our present businesse Is generall woe: Friends of my soule, you twaine, Rule in this Realme, and the gor'd state sustaine Kent. I haue a iourney Sir, shortly to go, My Master calls me, I must not say no Edg. The waight of this sad time we must obey, Speake what we feele, not what we ought to say: The oldest hath borne most, we that are yong, Shall neuer see so much, nor liue so long. Exeunt. with a dead March. FINIS. THE TRAGEDIE OF KING LEAR.

Cordelia and Lear are sent to prison but plan happy ways to spend their time there. Edmund tells his captain as he's taking them that they are to be assassinated. Albany enters to discuss the conditions of the prisoners, and Edmund tells him they will discuss it later. The women then get in a fight over Edmund, and Albany challenges him for trying to steal his wife. Goneril poisons Regan, and Edgar comes forward to fight Edmund in hand-to-hand combat. They battle and Edmund is wounded. Albany then asks Goneril about her involvement in the plot to kill him and she refuses to answer. Edmund then asks his challengers name, and Edgar reveals himself. He tells his tale of dressing as a madman, and how he just witnessed his father's death. Afterwards, he pleads for Kent because of all he's done for the king. A man enters with a bloody knife and says that Goneril has killed her self and confessed to poisoning her sister. Kent arrives and asks after the king. Edmund admits that he ordered the king and Cordelia killed, and they send a man after them to prevent it. Lear comes out with a dead Cordelia in his arms, and Kent reveals himself to his king and Albany decides to give Lear back his thrown. But because of his sadness at Cordelia's death, Lear dies as well much to the sadness of his loyal followers

summary

To dwellers in a wood almost every species of tree has its voice as well as its feature. At the passing of the breeze the fir-trees sob and moan no less distinctly than they rock; the holly whistles as it battles with itself; the ash hisses amid its quiverings; the beech rustles while its flat boughs rise and fall. And winter, which modifies the note of such trees as shed their leaves, does not destroy its individuality. On a cold and starry Christmas-eve within living memory a man was passing up a lane towards Mellstock Cross in the darkness of a plantation that whispered thus distinctively to his intelligence. All the evidences of his nature were those afforded by the spirit of his footsteps, which succeeded each other lightly and quickly, and by the liveliness of his voice as he sang in a rural cadence: "With the rose and the lily And the daffodowndilly, The lads and the lasses a-sheep-shearing go." The lonely lane he was following connected one of the hamlets of Mellstock parish with Upper Mellstock and Lewgate, and to his eyes, casually glancing upward, the silver and black-stemmed birches with their characteristic tufts, the pale grey boughs of beech, the dark-creviced elm, all appeared now as black and flat outlines upon the sky, wherein the white stars twinkled so vehemently that their flickering seemed like the flapping of wings. Within the woody pass, at a level anything lower than the horizon, all was dark as the grave. The copse-wood forming the sides of the bower interlaced its branches so densely, even at this season of the year, that the draught from the north-east flew along the channel with scarcely an interruption from lateral breezes. After passing the plantation and reaching Mellstock Cross the white surface of the lane revealed itself between the dark hedgerows like a ribbon jagged at the edges; the irregularity being caused by temporary accumulations of leaves extending from the ditch on either side. The song (many times interrupted by flitting thoughts which took the place of several bars, and resumed at a point it would have reached had its continuity been unbroken) now received a more palpable check, in the shape of "Ho-i-i-i-i-i!" from the crossing lane to Lower Mellstock, on the right of the singer who had just emerged from the trees. "Ho-i-i-i-i-i!" he answered, stopping and looking round, though with no idea of seeing anything more than imagination pictured. "Is that thee, young Dick Dewy?" came from the darkness. "Ay, sure, Michael Mail." "Then why not stop for fellow-craters--going to thy own father's house too, as we be, and knowen us so well?" Dick Dewy faced about and continued his tune in an under-whistle, implying that the business of his mouth could not be checked at a moment's notice by the placid emotion of friendship. Having come more into the open he could now be seen rising against the sky, his profile appearing on the light background like the portrait of a gentleman in black cardboard. It assumed the form of a low-crowned hat, an ordinary-shaped nose, an ordinary chin, an ordinary neck, and ordinary shoulders. What he consisted of further down was invisible from lack of sky low enough to picture him on. Shuffling, halting, irregular footsteps of various kinds were now heard coming up the hill, and presently there emerged from the shade severally five men of different ages and gaits, all of them working villagers of the parish of Mellstock. They, too, had lost their rotundity with the daylight, and advanced against the sky in flat outlines, which suggested some processional design on Greek or Etruscan pottery. They represented the chief portion of Mellstock parish choir. The first was a bowed and bent man, who carried a fiddle under his arm, and walked as if engaged in studying some subject connected with the surface of the road. He was Michael Mail, the man who had hallooed to Dick. The next was Mr. Robert Penny, boot- and shoemaker; a little man, who, though rather round-shouldered, walked as if that fact had not come to his own knowledge, moving on with his back very hollow and his face fixed on the north-east quarter of the heavens before him, so that his lower waist-coat-buttons came first, and then the remainder of his figure. His features were invisible; yet when he occasionally looked round, two faint moons of light gleamed for an instant from the precincts of his eyes, denoting that he wore spectacles of a circular form. The third was Elias Spinks, who walked perpendicularly and dramatically. The fourth outline was Joseph Bowman's, who had now no distinctive appearance beyond that of a human being. Finally came a weak lath-like form, trotting and stumbling along with one shoulder forward and his head inclined to the left, his arms dangling nervelessly in the wind as if they were empty sleeves. This was Thomas Leaf. "Where be the boys?" said Dick to this somewhat indifferently-matched assembly. The eldest of the group, Michael Mail, cleared his throat from a great depth. "We told them to keep back at home for a time, thinken they wouldn't be wanted yet awhile; and we could choose the tuens, and so on." "Father and grandfather William have expected ye a little sooner. I have just been for a run round by Ewelease Stile and Hollow Hill to warm my feet." "To be sure father did! To be sure 'a did expect us--to taste the little barrel beyond compare that he's going to tap." "'Od rabbit it all! Never heard a word of it!" said Mr. Penny, gleams of delight appearing upon his spectacle-glasses, Dick meanwhile singing parenthetically-- "The lads and the lasses a-sheep-shearing go." "Neighbours, there's time enough to drink a sight of drink now afore bedtime?" said Mail. "True, true--time enough to get as drunk as lords!" replied Bowman cheerfully. This opinion being taken as convincing they all advanced between the varying hedges and the trees dotting them here and there, kicking their toes occasionally among the crumpled leaves. Soon appeared glimmering indications of the few cottages forming the small hamlet of Upper Mellstock for which they were bound, whilst the faint sound of church- bells ringing a Christmas peal could be heard floating over upon the breeze from the direction of Longpuddle and Weatherbury parishes on the other side of the hills. A little wicket admitted them to the garden, and they proceeded up the path to Dick's house.

The book begins on a cold and starry Christmas Eve in Mellstock. Dick Dewy, an ordinary looking young man, is singing on his way home through the woods. Five other villagers, also traveling towards the Dewy house, join Dick, including Michael Mail , Robert Penny , Elias Spinks , Joseph Bowman , and Thomas Leaf . Dick tells all five of them that his father and grandfather have been eagerly awaiting their arrival. In fact, all of the Mellstock men's choir will be meeting at Dick's house, assembling for the annual carol sing. The five villagers tell Dick that they are delighted at the thought of drinking from the new barrel of cider that Dick's father is going to tap for them.

summary

To dwellers in a wood almost every species of tree has its voice as well as its feature. At the passing of the breeze the fir-trees sob and moan no less distinctly than they rock; the holly whistles as it battles with itself; the ash hisses amid its quiverings; the beech rustles while its flat boughs rise and fall. And winter, which modifies the note of such trees as shed their leaves, does not destroy its individuality. On a cold and starry Christmas-eve within living memory a man was passing up a lane towards Mellstock Cross in the darkness of a plantation that whispered thus distinctively to his intelligence. All the evidences of his nature were those afforded by the spirit of his footsteps, which succeeded each other lightly and quickly, and by the liveliness of his voice as he sang in a rural cadence: "With the rose and the lily And the daffodowndilly, The lads and the lasses a-sheep-shearing go." The lonely lane he was following connected one of the hamlets of Mellstock parish with Upper Mellstock and Lewgate, and to his eyes, casually glancing upward, the silver and black-stemmed birches with their characteristic tufts, the pale grey boughs of beech, the dark-creviced elm, all appeared now as black and flat outlines upon the sky, wherein the white stars twinkled so vehemently that their flickering seemed like the flapping of wings. Within the woody pass, at a level anything lower than the horizon, all was dark as the grave. The copse-wood forming the sides of the bower interlaced its branches so densely, even at this season of the year, that the draught from the north-east flew along the channel with scarcely an interruption from lateral breezes. After passing the plantation and reaching Mellstock Cross the white surface of the lane revealed itself between the dark hedgerows like a ribbon jagged at the edges; the irregularity being caused by temporary accumulations of leaves extending from the ditch on either side. The song (many times interrupted by flitting thoughts which took the place of several bars, and resumed at a point it would have reached had its continuity been unbroken) now received a more palpable check, in the shape of "Ho-i-i-i-i-i!" from the crossing lane to Lower Mellstock, on the right of the singer who had just emerged from the trees. "Ho-i-i-i-i-i!" he answered, stopping and looking round, though with no idea of seeing anything more than imagination pictured. "Is that thee, young Dick Dewy?" came from the darkness. "Ay, sure, Michael Mail." "Then why not stop for fellow-craters--going to thy own father's house too, as we be, and knowen us so well?" Dick Dewy faced about and continued his tune in an under-whistle, implying that the business of his mouth could not be checked at a moment's notice by the placid emotion of friendship. Having come more into the open he could now be seen rising against the sky, his profile appearing on the light background like the portrait of a gentleman in black cardboard. It assumed the form of a low-crowned hat, an ordinary-shaped nose, an ordinary chin, an ordinary neck, and ordinary shoulders. What he consisted of further down was invisible from lack of sky low enough to picture him on. Shuffling, halting, irregular footsteps of various kinds were now heard coming up the hill, and presently there emerged from the shade severally five men of different ages and gaits, all of them working villagers of the parish of Mellstock. They, too, had lost their rotundity with the daylight, and advanced against the sky in flat outlines, which suggested some processional design on Greek or Etruscan pottery. They represented the chief portion of Mellstock parish choir. The first was a bowed and bent man, who carried a fiddle under his arm, and walked as if engaged in studying some subject connected with the surface of the road. He was Michael Mail, the man who had hallooed to Dick. The next was Mr. Robert Penny, boot- and shoemaker; a little man, who, though rather round-shouldered, walked as if that fact had not come to his own knowledge, moving on with his back very hollow and his face fixed on the north-east quarter of the heavens before him, so that his lower waist-coat-buttons came first, and then the remainder of his figure. His features were invisible; yet when he occasionally looked round, two faint moons of light gleamed for an instant from the precincts of his eyes, denoting that he wore spectacles of a circular form. The third was Elias Spinks, who walked perpendicularly and dramatically. The fourth outline was Joseph Bowman's, who had now no distinctive appearance beyond that of a human being. Finally came a weak lath-like form, trotting and stumbling along with one shoulder forward and his head inclined to the left, his arms dangling nervelessly in the wind as if they were empty sleeves. This was Thomas Leaf. "Where be the boys?" said Dick to this somewhat indifferently-matched assembly. The eldest of the group, Michael Mail, cleared his throat from a great depth. "We told them to keep back at home for a time, thinken they wouldn't be wanted yet awhile; and we could choose the tuens, and so on." "Father and grandfather William have expected ye a little sooner. I have just been for a run round by Ewelease Stile and Hollow Hill to warm my feet." "To be sure father did! To be sure 'a did expect us--to taste the little barrel beyond compare that he's going to tap." "'Od rabbit it all! Never heard a word of it!" said Mr. Penny, gleams of delight appearing upon his spectacle-glasses, Dick meanwhile singing parenthetically-- "The lads and the lasses a-sheep-shearing go." "Neighbours, there's time enough to drink a sight of drink now afore bedtime?" said Mail. "True, true--time enough to get as drunk as lords!" replied Bowman cheerfully. This opinion being taken as convincing they all advanced between the varying hedges and the trees dotting them here and there, kicking their toes occasionally among the crumpled leaves. Soon appeared glimmering indications of the few cottages forming the small hamlet of Upper Mellstock for which they were bound, whilst the faint sound of church- bells ringing a Christmas peal could be heard floating over upon the breeze from the direction of Longpuddle and Weatherbury parishes on the other side of the hills. A little wicket admitted them to the garden, and they proceeded up the path to Dick's house.

Notes This first chapter is largely introductory. Hardy begins his description of the lovely Mellstock landscape in the very first paragraph of the novel. He also establishes the harmonious co- existence of the villagers with one another and with nature. In fact, the song that Dick Dewy is singing recalls the kinship between human life and the seasons. The structure of the novel will actually follow the seasons. The mood is immediately light and cheerful. The night is cold, crisp, and starry. Dick Dewy is obviously in a jovial mood as he sings a happy song. When he encounters other villagers, he is genuinely delighted to see them and tells them that his family eagerly awaits their arrival. The unusual physical characteristics of the rustic villagers are even humorously described by the author, adding to the light mood. There is a sense of festivity about everything, for the choir is gathering to have cider at the Dewy home and then proceeding to have their annual Christmas carol sing. This first chapter clearly establishes that Hardy is writing about a setting that he knows and loves.

analysis

It was a long low cottage with a hipped roof of thatch, having dormer windows breaking up into the eaves, a chimney standing in the middle of the ridge and another at each end. The window-shutters were not yet closed, and the fire- and candle-light within radiated forth upon the thick bushes of box and laurestinus growing in clumps outside, and upon the bare boughs of several codlin-trees hanging about in various distorted shapes, the result of early training as espaliers combined with careless climbing into their boughs in later years. The walls of the dwelling were for the most part covered with creepers, though these were rather beaten back from the doorway--a feature which was worn and scratched by much passing in and out, giving it by day the appearance of an old keyhole. Light streamed through the cracks and joints of outbuildings a little way from the cottage, a sight which nourished a fancy that the purpose of the erection must be rather to veil bright attractions than to shelter unsightly necessaries. The noise of a beetle and wedges and the splintering of wood was periodically heard from this direction; and at some little distance further a steady regular munching and the occasional scurr of a rope betokened a stable, and horses feeding within it. The choir stamped severally on the door-stone to shake from their boots any fragment of earth or leaf adhering thereto, then entered the house and looked around to survey the condition of things. Through the open doorway of a small inner room on the right hand, of a character between pantry and cellar, was Dick Dewy's father Reuben, by vocation a "tranter," or irregular carrier. He was a stout florid man about forty years of age, who surveyed people up and down when first making their acquaintance, and generally smiled at the horizon or other distant object during conversations with friends, walking about with a steady sway, and turning out his toes very considerably. Being now occupied in bending over a hogshead, that stood in the pantry ready horsed for the process of broaching, he did not take the trouble to turn or raise his eyes at the entry of his visitors, well knowing by their footsteps that they were the expected old comrades. The main room, on the left, was decked with bunches of holly and other evergreens, and from the middle of the beam bisecting the ceiling hung the mistletoe, of a size out of all proportion to the room, and extending so low that it became necessary for a full-grown person to walk round it in passing, or run the risk of entangling his hair. This apartment contained Mrs. Dewy the tranter's wife, and the four remaining children, Susan, Jim, Bessy, and Charley, graduating uniformly though at wide stages from the age of sixteen to that of four years--the eldest of the series being separated from Dick the firstborn by a nearly equal interval. Some circumstance had apparently caused much grief to Charley just previous to the entry of the choir, and he had absently taken down a small looking-glass, holding it before his face to learn how the human countenance appeared when engaged in crying, which survey led him to pause at the various points in each wail that were more than ordinarily striking, for a thorough appreciation of the general effect. Bessy was leaning against a chair, and glancing under the plaits about the waist of the plaid frock she wore, to notice the original unfaded pattern of the material as there preserved, her face bearing an expression of regret that the brightness had passed away from the visible portions. Mrs. Dewy sat in a brown settle by the side of the glowing wood fire--so glowing that with a heedful compression of the lips she would now and then rise and put her hand upon the hams and flitches of bacon lining the chimney, to reassure herself that they were not being broiled instead of smoked--a misfortune that had been known to happen now and then at Christmas-time. "Hullo, my sonnies, here you be, then!" said Reuben Dewy at length, standing up and blowing forth a vehement gust of breath. "How the blood do puff up in anybody's head, to be sure, a-stooping like that! I was just going out to gate to hark for ye." He then carefully began to wind a strip of brown paper round a brass tap he held in his hand. "This in the cask here is a drop o' the right sort" (tapping the cask); "'tis a real drop o' cordial from the best picked apples--Sansoms, Stubbards, Five-corners, and such-like--you d'mind the sort, Michael?" (Michael nodded.) "And there's a sprinkling of they that grow down by the orchard- rails--streaked ones--rail apples we d'call 'em, as 'tis by the rails they grow, and not knowing the right name. The water-cider from 'em is as good as most people's best cider is." "Ay, and of the same make too," said Bowman. "'It rained when we wrung it out, and the water got into it,' folk will say. But 'tis on'y an excuse. Watered cider is too common among us." "Yes, yes; too common it is!" said Spinks with an inward sigh, whilst his eyes seemed to be looking at the case in an abstract form rather than at the scene before him. "Such poor liquor do make a man's throat feel very melancholy--and is a disgrace to the name of stimmilent." "Come in, come in, and draw up to the fire; never mind your shoes," said Mrs. Dewy, seeing that all except Dick had paused to wipe them upon the door-mat. "I am glad that you've stepped up-along at last; and, Susan, you run down to Grammer Kaytes's and see if you can borrow some larger candles than these fourteens. Tommy Leaf, don't ye be afeard! Come and sit here in the settle." This was addressed to the young man before mentioned, consisting chiefly of a human skeleton and a smock-frock, who was very awkward in his movements, apparently on account of having grown so very fast that before he had had time to get used to his height he was higher. "Hee--hee--ay!" replied Leaf, letting his mouth continue to smile for some time after his mind had done smiling, so that his teeth remained in view as the most conspicuous members of his body. "Here, Mr. Penny," resumed Mrs. Dewy, "you sit in this chair. And how's your daughter, Mrs. Brownjohn?" "Well, I suppose I must say pretty fair." He adjusted his spectacles a quarter of an inch to the right. "But she'll be worse before she's better, 'a b'lieve." "Indeed--poor soul! And how many will that make in all, four or five?" "Five; they've buried three. Yes, five; and she not much more than a maid yet. She do know the multiplication table onmistakable well. However, 'twas to be, and none can gainsay it." Mrs. Dewy resigned Mr. Penny. "Wonder where your grandfather James is?" she inquired of one of the children. "He said he'd drop in to-night." "Out in fuel-house with grandfather William," said Jimmy. "Now let's see what we can do," was heard spoken about this time by the tranter in a private voice to the barrel, beside which he had again established himself, and was stooping to cut away the cork. "Reuben, don't make such a mess o' tapping that barrel as is mostly made in this house," Mrs. Dewy cried from the fireplace. "I'd tap a hundred without wasting more than you do in one. Such a squizzling and squirting job as 'tis in your hands! There, he always was such a clumsy man indoors." "Ay, ay; I know you'd tap a hundred beautiful, Ann--I know you would; two hundred, perhaps. But I can't promise. This is a' old cask, and the wood's rotted away about the tap-hole. The husbird of a feller Sam Lawson--that ever I should call'n such, now he's dead and gone, poor heart!--took me in completely upon the feat of buying this cask. 'Reub,' says he--'a always used to call me plain Reub, poor old heart!--'Reub,' he said, says he, 'that there cask, Reub, is as good as new; yes, good as new. 'Tis a wine-hogshead; the best port-wine in the commonwealth have been in that there cask; and you shall have en for ten shillens, Reub,'--'a said, says he--'he's worth twenty, ay, five-and-twenty, if he's worth one; and an iron hoop or two put round en among the wood ones will make en worth thirty shillens of any man's money, if--'" "I think I should have used the eyes that Providence gave me to use afore I paid any ten shillens for a jimcrack wine-barrel; a saint is sinner enough not to be cheated. But 'tis like all your family was, so easy to be deceived." "That's as true as gospel of this member," said Reuben. Mrs. Dewy began a smile at the answer, then altering her lips and refolding them so that it was not a smile, commenced smoothing little Bessy's hair; the tranter having meanwhile suddenly become oblivious to conversation, occupying himself in a deliberate cutting and arrangement of some more brown paper for the broaching operation. "Ah, who can believe sellers!" said old Michael Mail in a carefully-cautious voice, by way of tiding-over this critical point of affairs. "No one at all," said Joseph Bowman, in the tone of a man fully agreeing with everybody. "Ay," said Mail, in the tone of a man who did not agree with everybody as a rule, though he did now; "I knowed a' auctioneering feller once--a very friendly feller 'a was too. And so one hot day as I was walking down the front street o' Casterbridge, jist below the King's Arms, I passed a' open winder and see him inside, stuck upon his perch, a-selling off. I jist nodded to en in a friendly way as I passed, and went my way, and thought no more about it. Well, next day, as I was oilen my boots by fuel-house door, if a letter didn't come wi' a bill charging me with a feather-bed, bolster, and pillers, that I had bid for at Mr. Taylor's sale. The slim-faced martel had knocked 'em down to me because I nodded to en in my friendly way; and I had to pay for 'em too. Now, I hold that that was coming it very close, Reuben?" "'Twas close, there's no denying," said the general voice. "Too close, 'twas," said Reuben, in the rear of the rest. "And as to Sam Lawson--poor heart! now he's dead and gone too!--I'll warrant, that if so be I've spent one hour in making hoops for that barrel, I've spent fifty, first and last. That's one of my hoops"--touching it with his elbow--"that's one of mine, and that, and that, and all these." "Ah, Sam was a man," said Mr. Penny, contemplatively. "Sam was!" said Bowman. "Especially for a drap o' drink," said the tranter. "Good, but not religious-good," suggested Mr. Penny. The tranter nodded. Having at last made the tap and hole quite ready, "Now then, Suze, bring a mug," he said. "Here's luck to us, my sonnies!" The tap went in, and the cider immediately squirted out in a horizontal shower over Reuben's hands, knees, and leggings, and into the eyes and neck of Charley, who, having temporarily put off his grief under pressure of more interesting proceedings, was squatting down and blinking near his father. "There 'tis again!" said Mrs. Dewy. "Devil take the hole, the cask, and Sam Lawson too, that good cider should be wasted like this!" exclaimed the tranter. "Your thumb! Lend me your thumb, Michael! Ram it in here, Michael! I must get a bigger tap, my sonnies." "Idd it cold inthide te hole?" inquired Charley of Michael, as he continued in a stooping posture with his thumb in the cork-hole. "What wonderful odds and ends that chiel has in his head to be sure!" Mrs. Dewy admiringly exclaimed from the distance. "I lay a wager that he thinks more about how 'tis inside that barrel than in all the other parts of the world put together." All persons present put on a speaking countenance of admiration for the cleverness alluded to, in the midst of which Reuben returned. The operation was then satisfactorily performed; when Michael arose and stretched his head to the extremest fraction of height that his body would allow of, to re-straighten his back and shoulders--thrusting out his arms and twisting his features to a mass of wrinkles to emphasize the relief aquired. A quart or two of the beverage was then brought to table, at which all the new arrivals reseated themselves with wide-spread knees, their eyes meditatively seeking out any speck or knot in the board upon which the gaze might precipitate itself. "Whatever is father a-biding out in fuel-house so long for?" said the tranter. "Never such a man as father for two things--cleaving up old dead apple-tree wood and playing the bass-viol. 'A'd pass his life between the two, that 'a would." He stepped to the door and opened it. "Father!" "Ay!" rang thinly from round the corner. "Here's the barrel tapped, and we all a-waiting!" A series of dull thuds, that had been heard without for some time past, now ceased; and after the light of a lantern had passed the window and made wheeling rays upon the ceiling inside the eldest of the Dewy family appeared.

The Dewy's house, a low-roofed cottage, has three chimneys and a thatched roof. The walls of the house are covered with creeping plants, and the door appears to be worn out from the coming and going of many people. A little away from the cottage is a building from which comes the sound of woodcutting. The sound of horses can also be heard. The men's church choir enters the house, wiping their boots clean on the doorstep. As they enter, they spy Dick's father, Reuben Dewy. Known to the townsfolk as the Tranter, Reuben, a stout, red-faced man of about forty, is busily engaged in opening a barrel of cider. He does not bother to look up when they enter, but he welcomes the men and tells them that the cider is made from the finest apples. The main room to the left of the cottage is decorated with a Christmas tree. The Tranter's wife and four of his children are gathered there; Susan, Jim, Bessy, and Charley are all between the ages of four and sixteen; Dick, the oldest, is twenty years old. Mrs. Dewy invites the choir to sit round the fire. She warmly asks Thomas Leaf to sit beside her and inquires about Mr. Penny's daughter, who is expecting her fifth baby. As Reuben is about to open the barrel, he remembers the deceased Sam Lawson, who had given him the cider. When the cider shoots out in a stream, he sends his daughter to get mugs and tells Michael to put his thumb over the hole while he retrieves a cork. The choir sits drinking around the table. Reuben wonders if his father, known as Grandfather William, is cutting wood or playing the violin. He goes to find him and ask him to join the party.

summary

It was a long low cottage with a hipped roof of thatch, having dormer windows breaking up into the eaves, a chimney standing in the middle of the ridge and another at each end. The window-shutters were not yet closed, and the fire- and candle-light within radiated forth upon the thick bushes of box and laurestinus growing in clumps outside, and upon the bare boughs of several codlin-trees hanging about in various distorted shapes, the result of early training as espaliers combined with careless climbing into their boughs in later years. The walls of the dwelling were for the most part covered with creepers, though these were rather beaten back from the doorway--a feature which was worn and scratched by much passing in and out, giving it by day the appearance of an old keyhole. Light streamed through the cracks and joints of outbuildings a little way from the cottage, a sight which nourished a fancy that the purpose of the erection must be rather to veil bright attractions than to shelter unsightly necessaries. The noise of a beetle and wedges and the splintering of wood was periodically heard from this direction; and at some little distance further a steady regular munching and the occasional scurr of a rope betokened a stable, and horses feeding within it. The choir stamped severally on the door-stone to shake from their boots any fragment of earth or leaf adhering thereto, then entered the house and looked around to survey the condition of things. Through the open doorway of a small inner room on the right hand, of a character between pantry and cellar, was Dick Dewy's father Reuben, by vocation a "tranter," or irregular carrier. He was a stout florid man about forty years of age, who surveyed people up and down when first making their acquaintance, and generally smiled at the horizon or other distant object during conversations with friends, walking about with a steady sway, and turning out his toes very considerably. Being now occupied in bending over a hogshead, that stood in the pantry ready horsed for the process of broaching, he did not take the trouble to turn or raise his eyes at the entry of his visitors, well knowing by their footsteps that they were the expected old comrades. The main room, on the left, was decked with bunches of holly and other evergreens, and from the middle of the beam bisecting the ceiling hung the mistletoe, of a size out of all proportion to the room, and extending so low that it became necessary for a full-grown person to walk round it in passing, or run the risk of entangling his hair. This apartment contained Mrs. Dewy the tranter's wife, and the four remaining children, Susan, Jim, Bessy, and Charley, graduating uniformly though at wide stages from the age of sixteen to that of four years--the eldest of the series being separated from Dick the firstborn by a nearly equal interval. Some circumstance had apparently caused much grief to Charley just previous to the entry of the choir, and he had absently taken down a small looking-glass, holding it before his face to learn how the human countenance appeared when engaged in crying, which survey led him to pause at the various points in each wail that were more than ordinarily striking, for a thorough appreciation of the general effect. Bessy was leaning against a chair, and glancing under the plaits about the waist of the plaid frock she wore, to notice the original unfaded pattern of the material as there preserved, her face bearing an expression of regret that the brightness had passed away from the visible portions. Mrs. Dewy sat in a brown settle by the side of the glowing wood fire--so glowing that with a heedful compression of the lips she would now and then rise and put her hand upon the hams and flitches of bacon lining the chimney, to reassure herself that they were not being broiled instead of smoked--a misfortune that had been known to happen now and then at Christmas-time. "Hullo, my sonnies, here you be, then!" said Reuben Dewy at length, standing up and blowing forth a vehement gust of breath. "How the blood do puff up in anybody's head, to be sure, a-stooping like that! I was just going out to gate to hark for ye." He then carefully began to wind a strip of brown paper round a brass tap he held in his hand. "This in the cask here is a drop o' the right sort" (tapping the cask); "'tis a real drop o' cordial from the best picked apples--Sansoms, Stubbards, Five-corners, and such-like--you d'mind the sort, Michael?" (Michael nodded.) "And there's a sprinkling of they that grow down by the orchard- rails--streaked ones--rail apples we d'call 'em, as 'tis by the rails they grow, and not knowing the right name. The water-cider from 'em is as good as most people's best cider is." "Ay, and of the same make too," said Bowman. "'It rained when we wrung it out, and the water got into it,' folk will say. But 'tis on'y an excuse. Watered cider is too common among us." "Yes, yes; too common it is!" said Spinks with an inward sigh, whilst his eyes seemed to be looking at the case in an abstract form rather than at the scene before him. "Such poor liquor do make a man's throat feel very melancholy--and is a disgrace to the name of stimmilent." "Come in, come in, and draw up to the fire; never mind your shoes," said Mrs. Dewy, seeing that all except Dick had paused to wipe them upon the door-mat. "I am glad that you've stepped up-along at last; and, Susan, you run down to Grammer Kaytes's and see if you can borrow some larger candles than these fourteens. Tommy Leaf, don't ye be afeard! Come and sit here in the settle." This was addressed to the young man before mentioned, consisting chiefly of a human skeleton and a smock-frock, who was very awkward in his movements, apparently on account of having grown so very fast that before he had had time to get used to his height he was higher. "Hee--hee--ay!" replied Leaf, letting his mouth continue to smile for some time after his mind had done smiling, so that his teeth remained in view as the most conspicuous members of his body. "Here, Mr. Penny," resumed Mrs. Dewy, "you sit in this chair. And how's your daughter, Mrs. Brownjohn?" "Well, I suppose I must say pretty fair." He adjusted his spectacles a quarter of an inch to the right. "But she'll be worse before she's better, 'a b'lieve." "Indeed--poor soul! And how many will that make in all, four or five?" "Five; they've buried three. Yes, five; and she not much more than a maid yet. She do know the multiplication table onmistakable well. However, 'twas to be, and none can gainsay it." Mrs. Dewy resigned Mr. Penny. "Wonder where your grandfather James is?" she inquired of one of the children. "He said he'd drop in to-night." "Out in fuel-house with grandfather William," said Jimmy. "Now let's see what we can do," was heard spoken about this time by the tranter in a private voice to the barrel, beside which he had again established himself, and was stooping to cut away the cork. "Reuben, don't make such a mess o' tapping that barrel as is mostly made in this house," Mrs. Dewy cried from the fireplace. "I'd tap a hundred without wasting more than you do in one. Such a squizzling and squirting job as 'tis in your hands! There, he always was such a clumsy man indoors." "Ay, ay; I know you'd tap a hundred beautiful, Ann--I know you would; two hundred, perhaps. But I can't promise. This is a' old cask, and the wood's rotted away about the tap-hole. The husbird of a feller Sam Lawson--that ever I should call'n such, now he's dead and gone, poor heart!--took me in completely upon the feat of buying this cask. 'Reub,' says he--'a always used to call me plain Reub, poor old heart!--'Reub,' he said, says he, 'that there cask, Reub, is as good as new; yes, good as new. 'Tis a wine-hogshead; the best port-wine in the commonwealth have been in that there cask; and you shall have en for ten shillens, Reub,'--'a said, says he--'he's worth twenty, ay, five-and-twenty, if he's worth one; and an iron hoop or two put round en among the wood ones will make en worth thirty shillens of any man's money, if--'" "I think I should have used the eyes that Providence gave me to use afore I paid any ten shillens for a jimcrack wine-barrel; a saint is sinner enough not to be cheated. But 'tis like all your family was, so easy to be deceived." "That's as true as gospel of this member," said Reuben. Mrs. Dewy began a smile at the answer, then altering her lips and refolding them so that it was not a smile, commenced smoothing little Bessy's hair; the tranter having meanwhile suddenly become oblivious to conversation, occupying himself in a deliberate cutting and arrangement of some more brown paper for the broaching operation. "Ah, who can believe sellers!" said old Michael Mail in a carefully-cautious voice, by way of tiding-over this critical point of affairs. "No one at all," said Joseph Bowman, in the tone of a man fully agreeing with everybody. "Ay," said Mail, in the tone of a man who did not agree with everybody as a rule, though he did now; "I knowed a' auctioneering feller once--a very friendly feller 'a was too. And so one hot day as I was walking down the front street o' Casterbridge, jist below the King's Arms, I passed a' open winder and see him inside, stuck upon his perch, a-selling off. I jist nodded to en in a friendly way as I passed, and went my way, and thought no more about it. Well, next day, as I was oilen my boots by fuel-house door, if a letter didn't come wi' a bill charging me with a feather-bed, bolster, and pillers, that I had bid for at Mr. Taylor's sale. The slim-faced martel had knocked 'em down to me because I nodded to en in my friendly way; and I had to pay for 'em too. Now, I hold that that was coming it very close, Reuben?" "'Twas close, there's no denying," said the general voice. "Too close, 'twas," said Reuben, in the rear of the rest. "And as to Sam Lawson--poor heart! now he's dead and gone too!--I'll warrant, that if so be I've spent one hour in making hoops for that barrel, I've spent fifty, first and last. That's one of my hoops"--touching it with his elbow--"that's one of mine, and that, and that, and all these." "Ah, Sam was a man," said Mr. Penny, contemplatively. "Sam was!" said Bowman. "Especially for a drap o' drink," said the tranter. "Good, but not religious-good," suggested Mr. Penny. The tranter nodded. Having at last made the tap and hole quite ready, "Now then, Suze, bring a mug," he said. "Here's luck to us, my sonnies!" The tap went in, and the cider immediately squirted out in a horizontal shower over Reuben's hands, knees, and leggings, and into the eyes and neck of Charley, who, having temporarily put off his grief under pressure of more interesting proceedings, was squatting down and blinking near his father. "There 'tis again!" said Mrs. Dewy. "Devil take the hole, the cask, and Sam Lawson too, that good cider should be wasted like this!" exclaimed the tranter. "Your thumb! Lend me your thumb, Michael! Ram it in here, Michael! I must get a bigger tap, my sonnies." "Idd it cold inthide te hole?" inquired Charley of Michael, as he continued in a stooping posture with his thumb in the cork-hole. "What wonderful odds and ends that chiel has in his head to be sure!" Mrs. Dewy admiringly exclaimed from the distance. "I lay a wager that he thinks more about how 'tis inside that barrel than in all the other parts of the world put together." All persons present put on a speaking countenance of admiration for the cleverness alluded to, in the midst of which Reuben returned. The operation was then satisfactorily performed; when Michael arose and stretched his head to the extremest fraction of height that his body would allow of, to re-straighten his back and shoulders--thrusting out his arms and twisting his features to a mass of wrinkles to emphasize the relief aquired. A quart or two of the beverage was then brought to table, at which all the new arrivals reseated themselves with wide-spread knees, their eyes meditatively seeking out any speck or knot in the board upon which the gaze might precipitate itself. "Whatever is father a-biding out in fuel-house so long for?" said the tranter. "Never such a man as father for two things--cleaving up old dead apple-tree wood and playing the bass-viol. 'A'd pass his life between the two, that 'a would." He stepped to the door and opened it. "Father!" "Ay!" rang thinly from round the corner. "Here's the barrel tapped, and we all a-waiting!" A series of dull thuds, that had been heard without for some time past, now ceased; and after the light of a lantern had passed the window and made wheeling rays upon the ceiling inside the eldest of the Dewy family appeared.

Notes In this chapter, traditional rustic hospitality and family life are introduced. The Dewy home is warmly described in careful detail. Even though the Dewys are not wealthy, they are a close family unit. They have put up a Christmas tree in the big room of their picturesque cottage and have gathered around it, anxiously awaiting the arrival of the choir. Mrs. Dewy and four of her children are also eager for the return of Dick, the oldest son. As they wait, Reuben Dewy, Dick's father, is attempting to open a barrel of cider, which he plans to share with the men from the church choir. When the choir members enter, they are warmly welcomed with familiarity, even though Reuben never looks up from the task at hand. He feels totally comfortable with these rustics and feels no need to be formal. The group gathers around the table to enjoy the cider and good-humored conversation about their lives, past and present; it is obvious that they like and enjoy one another. When Reuben realizes that his own father, Grandfather William, has not yet joined them, he calls him to the party. In totality, the chapter is a warm picture of close community filled with a festive mood.

analysis

William Dewy--otherwise grandfather William--was now about seventy; yet an ardent vitality still preserved a warm and roughened bloom upon his face, which reminded gardeners of the sunny side of a ripe ribstone-pippin; though a narrow strip of forehead, that was protected from the weather by lying above the line of his hat-brim, seemed to belong to some town man, so gentlemanly was its whiteness. His was a humorous and kindly nature, not unmixed with a frequent melancholy; and he had a firm religious faith. But to his neighbours he had no character in particular. If they saw him pass by their windows when they had been bottling off old mead, or when they had just been called long-headed men who might do anything in the world if they chose, they thought concerning him, "Ah, there's that good-hearted man--open as a child!" If they saw him just after losing a shilling or half-a-crown, or accidentally letting fall a piece of crockery, they thought, "There's that poor weak-minded man Dewy again! Ah, he's never done much in the world either!" If he passed when fortune neither smiled nor frowned on them, they merely thought him old William Dewy. "Ah, so's--here you be!--Ah, Michael and Joseph and John--and you too, Leaf! a merry Christmas all! We shall have a rare log-wood fire directly, Reub, to reckon by the toughness of the job I had in cleaving 'em." As he spoke he threw down an armful of logs which fell in the chimney-corner with a rumble, and looked at them with something of the admiring enmity he would have bestowed on living people who had been very obstinate in holding their own. "Come in, grandfather James." Old James (grandfather on the maternal side) had simply called as a visitor. He lived in a cottage by himself, and many people considered him a miser; some, rather slovenly in his habits. He now came forward from behind grandfather William, and his stooping figure formed a well- illuminated picture as he passed towards the fire-place. Being by trade a mason, he wore a long linen apron reaching almost to his toes, corduroy breeches and gaiters, which, together with his boots, graduated in tints of whitish-brown by constant friction against lime and stone. He also wore a very stiff fustian coat, having folds at the elbows and shoulders as unvarying in their arrangement as those in a pair of bellows: the ridges and the projecting parts of the coat collectively exhibiting a shade different from that of the hollows, which were lined with small ditch-like accumulations of stone and mortar-dust. The extremely large side-pockets, sheltered beneath wide flaps, bulged out convexly whether empty or full; and as he was often engaged to work at buildings far away--his breakfasts and dinners being eaten in a strange chimney-corner, by a garden wall, on a heap of stones, or walking along the road--he carried in these pockets a small tin canister of butter, a small canister of sugar, a small canister of tea, a paper of salt, and a paper of pepper; the bread, cheese, and meat, forming the substance of his meals, hanging up behind him in his basket among the hammers and chisels. If a passer-by looked hard at him when he was drawing forth any of these, "My buttery," he said, with a pinched smile. "Better try over number seventy-eight before we start, I suppose?" said William, pointing to a heap of old Christmas-carol books on a side table. "Wi' all my heart," said the choir generally. "Number seventy-eight was always a teaser--always. I can mind him ever since I was growing up a hard boy-chap." "But he's a good tune, and worth a mint o' practice," said Michael. "He is; though I've been mad enough wi' that tune at times to seize en and tear en all to linnit. Ay, he's a splendid carrel--there's no denying that." "The first line is well enough," said Mr. Spinks; "but when you come to 'O, thou man,' you make a mess o't." "We'll have another go into en, and see what we can make of the martel. Half-an-hour's hammering at en will conquer the toughness of en; I'll warn it." "'Od rabbit it all!" said Mr. Penny, interrupting with a flash of his spectacles, and at the same time clawing at something in the depths of a large side-pocket. "If so be I hadn't been as scatter-brained and thirtingill as a chiel, I should have called at the schoolhouse wi' a boot as I cam up along. Whatever is coming to me I really can't estimate at all!" "The brain has its weaknesses," murmured Mr. Spinks, waving his head ominously. Mr. Spinks was considered to be a scholar, having once kept a night-school, and always spoke up to that level. "Well, I must call with en the first thing to-morrow. And I'll empt my pocket o' this last too, if you don't mind, Mrs. Dewy." He drew forth a last, and placed it on a table at his elbow. The eyes of three or four followed it. "Well," said the shoemaker, seeming to perceive that the interest the object had excited was greater than he had anticipated, and warranted the last's being taken up again and exhibited; "now, whose foot do ye suppose this last was made for? It was made for Geoffrey Day's father, over at Yalbury Wood. Ah, many's the pair o' boots he've had off the last! Well, when 'a died, I used the last for Geoffrey, and have ever since, though a little doctoring was wanted to make it do. Yes, a very queer natured last it is now, 'a b'lieve," he continued, turning it over caressingly. "Now, you notice that there" (pointing to a lump of leather bradded to the toe), "that's a very bad bunion that he've had ever since 'a was a boy. Now, this remarkable large piece" (pointing to a patch nailed to the side), "shows a' accident he received by the tread of a horse, that squashed his foot a'most to a pomace. The horseshoe cam full-butt on this point, you see. And so I've just been over to Geoffrey's, to know if he wanted his bunion altered or made bigger in the new pair I'm making." During the latter part of this speech, Mr. Penny's left hand wandered towards the cider-cup, as if the hand had no connection with the person speaking; and bringing his sentence to an abrupt close, all but the extreme margin of the bootmaker's face was eclipsed by the circular brim of the vessel. "However, I was going to say," continued Penny, putting down the cup, "I ought to have called at the school"--here he went groping again in the depths of his pocket--"to leave this without fail, though I suppose the first thing to-morrow will do." He now drew forth and placed upon the table a boot--small, light, and prettily shaped--upon the heel of which he had been operating. "The new schoolmistress's!" "Ay, no less, Miss Fancy Day; as neat a little figure of fun as ever I see, and just husband-high." "Never Geoffrey's daughter Fancy?" said Bowman, as all glances present converged like wheel-spokes upon the boot in the centre of them. "Yes, sure," resumed Mr. Penny, regarding the boot as if that alone were his auditor; "'tis she that's come here schoolmistress. You knowed his daughter was in training?" "Strange, isn't it, for her to be here Christmas night, Master Penny?" "Yes; but here she is, 'a b'lieve." "I know how she comes here--so I do!" chirruped one of the children. "Why?" Dick inquired, with subtle interest. "Pa'son Maybold was afraid he couldn't manage us all to-morrow at the dinner, and he talked o' getting her jist to come over and help him hand about the plates, and see we didn't make pigs of ourselves; and that's what she's come for!" "And that's the boot, then," continued its mender imaginatively, "that she'll walk to church in to-morrow morning. I don't care to mend boots I don't make; but there's no knowing what it may lead to, and her father always comes to me." There, between the cider-mug and the candle, stood this interesting receptacle of the little unknown's foot; and a very pretty boot it was. A character, in fact--the flexible bend at the instep, the rounded localities of the small nestling toes, scratches from careless scampers now forgotten--all, as repeated in the tell-tale leather, evidencing a nature and a bias. Dick surveyed it with a delicate feeling that he had no right to do so without having first asked the owner of the foot's permission. "Now, neighbours, though no common eye can see it," the shoemaker went on, "a man in the trade can see the likeness between this boot and that last, although that is so deformed as hardly to recall one of God's creatures, and this is one of as pretty a pair as you'd get for ten-and- sixpence in Casterbridge. To you, nothing; but 'tis father's voot and daughter's voot to me, as plain as houses." "I don't doubt there's a likeness, Master Penny--a mild likeness--a fantastical likeness," said Spinks. "But I han't got imagination enough to see it, perhaps." Mr. Penny adjusted his spectacles. "Now, I'll tell ye what happened to me once on this very point. You used to know Johnson the dairyman, William?" "Ay, sure; I did." "Well, 'twasn't opposite his house, but a little lower down--by his paddock, in front o' Parkmaze Pool. I was a-bearing across towards Bloom's End, and lo and behold, there was a man just brought out o' the Pool, dead; he had un'rayed for a dip, but not being able to pitch it just there had gone in flop over his head. Men looked at en; women looked at en; children looked at en; nobody knowed en. He was covered wi' a sheet; but I catched sight of his voot, just showing out as they carried en along. 'I don't care what name that man went by,' I said, in my way, 'but he's John Woodward's brother; I can swear to the family voot.' At that very moment up comes John Woodward, weeping and teaving, 'I've lost my brother! I've lost my brother!'" "Only to think of that!" said Mrs. Dewy. "'Tis well enough to know this foot and that foot," said Mr. Spinks. "'Tis long-headed, in fact, as far as feet do go. I know little, 'tis true--I say no more; but show me a man's foot, and I'll tell you that man's heart." "You must be a cleverer feller, then, than mankind in jineral," said the tranter. "Well, that's nothing for me to speak of," returned Mr. Spinks. "A man lives and learns. Maybe I've read a leaf or two in my time. I don't wish to say anything large, mind you; but nevertheless, maybe I have." "Yes, I know," said Michael soothingly, "and all the parish knows, that ye've read sommat of everything a'most, and have been a great filler of young folks' brains. Learning's a worthy thing, and ye've got it, Master Spinks." "I make no boast, though I may have read and thought a little; and I know--it may be from much perusing, but I make no boast--that by the time a man's head is finished, 'tis almost time for him to creep underground. I am over forty-five." Mr. Spinks emitted a look to signify that if his head was not finished, nobody's head ever could be. "Talk of knowing people by their feet!" said Reuben. "Rot me, my sonnies, then, if I can tell what a man is from all his members put together, oftentimes." "But still, look is a good deal," observed grandfather William absently, moving and balancing his head till the tip of grandfather James's nose was exactly in a right line with William's eye and the mouth of a miniature cavern he was discerning in the fire. "By the way," he continued in a fresher voice, and looking up, "that young crater, the schoolmis'ess, must be sung to to-night wi' the rest? If her ear is as fine as her face, we shall have enough to do to be up-sides with her." "What about her face?" said young Dewy. "Well, as to that," Mr. Spinks replied, "'tis a face you can hardly gainsay. A very good pink face, as far as that do go. Still, only a face, when all is said and done." "Come, come, Elias Spinks, say she's a pretty maid, and have done wi' her," said the tranter, again preparing to visit the cider-barrel.

Even though Grandfather William is seventy, he is still very active although sometimes weak-minded. His bright face would remind a gardener of the "sunny side of a ripe ribstone - pippin." William, a religious man, is also very good-hearted. When he joins the party, he wishes everyone a merry Christmas and throws an armful of logs on the fire. Before coming in, William has invited Grandfather James, Mrs. Dewy's father, to join them. He is a miserly stone mason who lives alone in his cottage. Grandfather William and the choir talk about which carols they will sing, for they need to practice in order to do well. Robert Penny, the local shoemaker, interrupts to exclaim that he has forgotten to deliver a pair of boots to the schoolhouse; he curses his weak-mindedness in forgetting important matters. Seeing that the mention of the boots has generated greater interest than expected, Penny explains that he has made boots for Geoffrey Day, Geoffrey's father, and Geoffrey's sister, Fancy Day. The boots that he has forgotten to deliver are the ones for Miss Day, who wanted to wear them to church the next morning. Talk turns to the new schoolmistress, whom they call "a figure of fun" and "just husband-high." Penny then tells the story of John Woodward's brother. When he drowned, no one could identify the body; but Penny was able to identify his boots. Spinks, considered the town scholar and a good teacher, says that he can identify the ways of a man's heart from his feet. Reuben expresses surprise at the fact that a person's character could be read from his feet. Grandfather William again turns the talk to the carol sing. He wonders whether they should sing for the new schoolmistress. Dick Dewy's interest is aroused because he has heard that Fancy Day is young and beautiful.

summary

William Dewy--otherwise grandfather William--was now about seventy; yet an ardent vitality still preserved a warm and roughened bloom upon his face, which reminded gardeners of the sunny side of a ripe ribstone-pippin; though a narrow strip of forehead, that was protected from the weather by lying above the line of his hat-brim, seemed to belong to some town man, so gentlemanly was its whiteness. His was a humorous and kindly nature, not unmixed with a frequent melancholy; and he had a firm religious faith. But to his neighbours he had no character in particular. If they saw him pass by their windows when they had been bottling off old mead, or when they had just been called long-headed men who might do anything in the world if they chose, they thought concerning him, "Ah, there's that good-hearted man--open as a child!" If they saw him just after losing a shilling or half-a-crown, or accidentally letting fall a piece of crockery, they thought, "There's that poor weak-minded man Dewy again! Ah, he's never done much in the world either!" If he passed when fortune neither smiled nor frowned on them, they merely thought him old William Dewy. "Ah, so's--here you be!--Ah, Michael and Joseph and John--and you too, Leaf! a merry Christmas all! We shall have a rare log-wood fire directly, Reub, to reckon by the toughness of the job I had in cleaving 'em." As he spoke he threw down an armful of logs which fell in the chimney-corner with a rumble, and looked at them with something of the admiring enmity he would have bestowed on living people who had been very obstinate in holding their own. "Come in, grandfather James." Old James (grandfather on the maternal side) had simply called as a visitor. He lived in a cottage by himself, and many people considered him a miser; some, rather slovenly in his habits. He now came forward from behind grandfather William, and his stooping figure formed a well- illuminated picture as he passed towards the fire-place. Being by trade a mason, he wore a long linen apron reaching almost to his toes, corduroy breeches and gaiters, which, together with his boots, graduated in tints of whitish-brown by constant friction against lime and stone. He also wore a very stiff fustian coat, having folds at the elbows and shoulders as unvarying in their arrangement as those in a pair of bellows: the ridges and the projecting parts of the coat collectively exhibiting a shade different from that of the hollows, which were lined with small ditch-like accumulations of stone and mortar-dust. The extremely large side-pockets, sheltered beneath wide flaps, bulged out convexly whether empty or full; and as he was often engaged to work at buildings far away--his breakfasts and dinners being eaten in a strange chimney-corner, by a garden wall, on a heap of stones, or walking along the road--he carried in these pockets a small tin canister of butter, a small canister of sugar, a small canister of tea, a paper of salt, and a paper of pepper; the bread, cheese, and meat, forming the substance of his meals, hanging up behind him in his basket among the hammers and chisels. If a passer-by looked hard at him when he was drawing forth any of these, "My buttery," he said, with a pinched smile. "Better try over number seventy-eight before we start, I suppose?" said William, pointing to a heap of old Christmas-carol books on a side table. "Wi' all my heart," said the choir generally. "Number seventy-eight was always a teaser--always. I can mind him ever since I was growing up a hard boy-chap." "But he's a good tune, and worth a mint o' practice," said Michael. "He is; though I've been mad enough wi' that tune at times to seize en and tear en all to linnit. Ay, he's a splendid carrel--there's no denying that." "The first line is well enough," said Mr. Spinks; "but when you come to 'O, thou man,' you make a mess o't." "We'll have another go into en, and see what we can make of the martel. Half-an-hour's hammering at en will conquer the toughness of en; I'll warn it." "'Od rabbit it all!" said Mr. Penny, interrupting with a flash of his spectacles, and at the same time clawing at something in the depths of a large side-pocket. "If so be I hadn't been as scatter-brained and thirtingill as a chiel, I should have called at the schoolhouse wi' a boot as I cam up along. Whatever is coming to me I really can't estimate at all!" "The brain has its weaknesses," murmured Mr. Spinks, waving his head ominously. Mr. Spinks was considered to be a scholar, having once kept a night-school, and always spoke up to that level. "Well, I must call with en the first thing to-morrow. And I'll empt my pocket o' this last too, if you don't mind, Mrs. Dewy." He drew forth a last, and placed it on a table at his elbow. The eyes of three or four followed it. "Well," said the shoemaker, seeming to perceive that the interest the object had excited was greater than he had anticipated, and warranted the last's being taken up again and exhibited; "now, whose foot do ye suppose this last was made for? It was made for Geoffrey Day's father, over at Yalbury Wood. Ah, many's the pair o' boots he've had off the last! Well, when 'a died, I used the last for Geoffrey, and have ever since, though a little doctoring was wanted to make it do. Yes, a very queer natured last it is now, 'a b'lieve," he continued, turning it over caressingly. "Now, you notice that there" (pointing to a lump of leather bradded to the toe), "that's a very bad bunion that he've had ever since 'a was a boy. Now, this remarkable large piece" (pointing to a patch nailed to the side), "shows a' accident he received by the tread of a horse, that squashed his foot a'most to a pomace. The horseshoe cam full-butt on this point, you see. And so I've just been over to Geoffrey's, to know if he wanted his bunion altered or made bigger in the new pair I'm making." During the latter part of this speech, Mr. Penny's left hand wandered towards the cider-cup, as if the hand had no connection with the person speaking; and bringing his sentence to an abrupt close, all but the extreme margin of the bootmaker's face was eclipsed by the circular brim of the vessel. "However, I was going to say," continued Penny, putting down the cup, "I ought to have called at the school"--here he went groping again in the depths of his pocket--"to leave this without fail, though I suppose the first thing to-morrow will do." He now drew forth and placed upon the table a boot--small, light, and prettily shaped--upon the heel of which he had been operating. "The new schoolmistress's!" "Ay, no less, Miss Fancy Day; as neat a little figure of fun as ever I see, and just husband-high." "Never Geoffrey's daughter Fancy?" said Bowman, as all glances present converged like wheel-spokes upon the boot in the centre of them. "Yes, sure," resumed Mr. Penny, regarding the boot as if that alone were his auditor; "'tis she that's come here schoolmistress. You knowed his daughter was in training?" "Strange, isn't it, for her to be here Christmas night, Master Penny?" "Yes; but here she is, 'a b'lieve." "I know how she comes here--so I do!" chirruped one of the children. "Why?" Dick inquired, with subtle interest. "Pa'son Maybold was afraid he couldn't manage us all to-morrow at the dinner, and he talked o' getting her jist to come over and help him hand about the plates, and see we didn't make pigs of ourselves; and that's what she's come for!" "And that's the boot, then," continued its mender imaginatively, "that she'll walk to church in to-morrow morning. I don't care to mend boots I don't make; but there's no knowing what it may lead to, and her father always comes to me." There, between the cider-mug and the candle, stood this interesting receptacle of the little unknown's foot; and a very pretty boot it was. A character, in fact--the flexible bend at the instep, the rounded localities of the small nestling toes, scratches from careless scampers now forgotten--all, as repeated in the tell-tale leather, evidencing a nature and a bias. Dick surveyed it with a delicate feeling that he had no right to do so without having first asked the owner of the foot's permission. "Now, neighbours, though no common eye can see it," the shoemaker went on, "a man in the trade can see the likeness between this boot and that last, although that is so deformed as hardly to recall one of God's creatures, and this is one of as pretty a pair as you'd get for ten-and- sixpence in Casterbridge. To you, nothing; but 'tis father's voot and daughter's voot to me, as plain as houses." "I don't doubt there's a likeness, Master Penny--a mild likeness--a fantastical likeness," said Spinks. "But I han't got imagination enough to see it, perhaps." Mr. Penny adjusted his spectacles. "Now, I'll tell ye what happened to me once on this very point. You used to know Johnson the dairyman, William?" "Ay, sure; I did." "Well, 'twasn't opposite his house, but a little lower down--by his paddock, in front o' Parkmaze Pool. I was a-bearing across towards Bloom's End, and lo and behold, there was a man just brought out o' the Pool, dead; he had un'rayed for a dip, but not being able to pitch it just there had gone in flop over his head. Men looked at en; women looked at en; children looked at en; nobody knowed en. He was covered wi' a sheet; but I catched sight of his voot, just showing out as they carried en along. 'I don't care what name that man went by,' I said, in my way, 'but he's John Woodward's brother; I can swear to the family voot.' At that very moment up comes John Woodward, weeping and teaving, 'I've lost my brother! I've lost my brother!'" "Only to think of that!" said Mrs. Dewy. "'Tis well enough to know this foot and that foot," said Mr. Spinks. "'Tis long-headed, in fact, as far as feet do go. I know little, 'tis true--I say no more; but show me a man's foot, and I'll tell you that man's heart." "You must be a cleverer feller, then, than mankind in jineral," said the tranter. "Well, that's nothing for me to speak of," returned Mr. Spinks. "A man lives and learns. Maybe I've read a leaf or two in my time. I don't wish to say anything large, mind you; but nevertheless, maybe I have." "Yes, I know," said Michael soothingly, "and all the parish knows, that ye've read sommat of everything a'most, and have been a great filler of young folks' brains. Learning's a worthy thing, and ye've got it, Master Spinks." "I make no boast, though I may have read and thought a little; and I know--it may be from much perusing, but I make no boast--that by the time a man's head is finished, 'tis almost time for him to creep underground. I am over forty-five." Mr. Spinks emitted a look to signify that if his head was not finished, nobody's head ever could be. "Talk of knowing people by their feet!" said Reuben. "Rot me, my sonnies, then, if I can tell what a man is from all his members put together, oftentimes." "But still, look is a good deal," observed grandfather William absently, moving and balancing his head till the tip of grandfather James's nose was exactly in a right line with William's eye and the mouth of a miniature cavern he was discerning in the fire. "By the way," he continued in a fresher voice, and looking up, "that young crater, the schoolmis'ess, must be sung to to-night wi' the rest? If her ear is as fine as her face, we shall have enough to do to be up-sides with her." "What about her face?" said young Dewy. "Well, as to that," Mr. Spinks replied, "'tis a face you can hardly gainsay. A very good pink face, as far as that do go. Still, only a face, when all is said and done." "Come, come, Elias Spinks, say she's a pretty maid, and have done wi' her," said the tranter, again preparing to visit the cider-barrel.

Notes In this chapter the Mellstock rustics are brought to life through their conversation and the stories that they tell. They perform an almost choric function as they give information on various characters and events. Penny's discussion on boot making and his digression on John Woodward's brother are very interesting and earthy, lending realism to the dialogue. The discussion of Fancy Day is humorous, but significant, since she will become the protagonist of the story and the object of Dick's affection. Much time is spent in the description of Grandfather William, Reuben's father. He is a kind-hearted man of seventy; although he is still very active, he is often forgetful. His cheerfulness is a sharp contrast to Mrs. Dewy's father, Grandfather James, who is a miserly loner.

analysis

Ralph Touchett was a philosopher, but nevertheless he knocked at his mother's door (at a quarter to seven) with a good deal of eagerness. Even philosophers have their preferences, and it must be admitted that of his progenitors his father ministered most to his sense of the sweetness of filial dependence. His father, as he had often said to himself, was the more motherly; his mother, on the other hand, was paternal, and even, according to the slang of the day, gubernatorial. She was nevertheless very fond of her only child and had always insisted on his spending three months of the year with her. Ralph rendered perfect justice to her affection and knew that in her thoughts and her thoroughly arranged and servanted life his turn always came after the other nearest subjects of her solicitude, the various punctualities of performance of the workers of her will. He found her completely dressed for dinner, but she embraced her boy with her gloved hands and made him sit on the sofa beside her. She enquired scrupulously about her husband's health and about the young man's own, and, receiving no very brilliant account of either, remarked that she was more than ever convinced of her wisdom in not exposing herself to the English climate. In this case she also might have given way. Ralph smiled at the idea of his mother's giving way, but made no point of reminding her that his own infirmity was not the result of the English climate, from which he absented himself for a considerable part of each year. He had been a very small boy when his father, Daniel Tracy Touchett, a native of Rutland, in the State of Vermont, came to England as subordinate partner in a banking-house where some ten years later he gained preponderant control. Daniel Touchett saw before him a life-long residence in his adopted country, of which, from the first, he took a simple, sane and accommodating view. But, as he said to himself, he had no intention of disamericanising, nor had he a desire to teach his only son any such subtle art. It had been for himself so very soluble a problem to live in England assimilated yet unconverted that it seemed to him equally simple his lawful heir should after his death carry on the grey old bank in the white American light. He was at pains to intensify this light, however, by sending the boy home for his education. Ralph spent several terms at an American school and took a degree at an American university, after which, as he struck his father on his return as even redundantly native, he was placed for some three years in residence at Oxford. Oxford swallowed up Harvard, and Ralph became at last English enough. His outward conformity to the manners that surrounded him was none the less the mask of a mind that greatly enjoyed its independence, on which nothing long imposed itself, and which, naturally inclined to adventure and irony, indulged in a boundless liberty of appreciation. He began with being a young man of promise; at Oxford he distinguished himself, to his father's ineffable satisfaction, and the people about him said it was a thousand pities so clever a fellow should be shut out from a career. He might have had a career by returning to his own country (though this point is shrouded in uncertainty) and even if Mr. Touchett had been willing to part with him (which was not the case) it would have gone hard with him to put a watery waste permanently between himself and the old man whom he regarded as his best friend. Ralph was not only fond of his father, he admired him--he enjoyed the opportunity of observing him. Daniel Touchett, to his perception, was a man of genius, and though he himself had no aptitude for the banking mystery he made a point of learning enough of it to measure the great figure his father had played. It was not this, however, he mainly relished; it was the fine ivory surface, polished as by the English air, that the old man had opposed to possibilities of penetration. Daniel Touchett had been neither at Harvard nor at Oxford, and it was his own fault if he had placed in his son's hands the key to modern criticism. Ralph, whose head was full of ideas which his father had never guessed, had a high esteem for the latter's originality. Americans, rightly or wrongly, are commended for the ease with which they adapt themselves to foreign conditions; but Mr. Touchett had made of the very limits of his pliancy half the ground of his general success. He had retained in their freshness most of his marks of primary pressure; his tone, as his son always noted with pleasure, was that of the more luxuriant parts of New England. At the end of his life he had become, on his own ground, as mellow as he was rich; he combined consummate shrewdness with the disposition superficially to fraternise, and his "social position," on which he had never wasted a care, had the firm perfection of an unthumbed fruit. It was perhaps his want of imagination and of what is called the historic consciousness; but to many of the impressions usually made by English life upon the cultivated stranger his sense was completely closed. There were certain differences he had never perceived, certain habits he had never formed, certain obscurities he had never sounded. As regards these latter, on the day he had sounded them his son would have thought less well of him. Ralph, on leaving Oxford, had spent a couple of years in travelling; after which he had found himself perched on a high stool in his father's bank. The responsibility and honour of such positions is not, I believe, measured by the height of the stool, which depends upon other considerations: Ralph, indeed, who had very long legs, was fond of standing, and even of walking about, at his work. To this exercise, however, he was obliged to devote but a limited period, for at the end of some eighteen months he had become aware of his being seriously out of health. He had caught a violent cold, which fixed itself on his lungs and threw them into dire confusion. He had to give up work and apply, to the letter, the sorry injunction to take care of himself. At first he slighted the task; it appeared to him it was not himself in the least he was taking care of, but an uninteresting and uninterested person with whom he had nothing in common. This person, however, improved on acquaintance, and Ralph grew at last to have a certain grudging tolerance, even an undemonstrative respect, for him. Misfortune makes strange bedfellows, and our young man, feeling that he had something at stake in the matter--it usually struck him as his reputation for ordinary wit--devoted to his graceless charge an amount of attention of which note was duly taken and which had at least the effect of keeping the poor fellow alive. One of his lungs began to heal, the other promised to follow its example, and he was assured he might outweather a dozen winters if he would betake himself to those climates in which consumptives chiefly congregate. As he had grown extremely fond of London, he cursed the flatness of exile: but at the same time that he cursed he conformed, and gradually, when he found his sensitive organ grateful even for grim favours, he conferred them with a lighter hand. He wintered abroad, as the phrase is; basked in the sun, stopped at home when the wind blew, went to bed when it rained, and once or twice, when it had snowed overnight, almost never got up again. A secret hoard of indifference--like a thick cake a fond old nurse might have slipped into his first school outfit--came to his aid and helped to reconcile him to sacrifice; since at the best he was too ill for aught but that arduous game. As he said to himself, there was really nothing he had wanted very much to do, so that he had at least not renounced the field of valour. 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. But this vision was dispelled some three years before the occurrence of the incidents with which this history opens: he had on that occasion remained later than usual in England and had been overtaken by bad weather before reaching Algiers. He arrived more dead than alive and lay there for several weeks between life and death. His convalescence was a miracle, but the first use he made of it was to assure himself that such miracles happen but once. He said to himself that his hour was in sight and that it behoved him to keep his eyes upon it, yet that it was also open to him to spend the interval as agreeably as might be consistent with such a preoccupation. With the prospect of losing them the simple use of his faculties became an exquisite pleasure; it seemed to him the joys of contemplation had never been sounded. He was far from the time when he had found it hard that he should be obliged to give up the idea of distinguishing himself; an idea none the less importunate for being vague and none the less delightful for having had to struggle in the same breast with bursts of inspiring self-criticism. 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. If he was consideringly disposed, something told him, here was occupation enough for a succession of days. It may be added, in summary fashion, that the imagination of loving--as distinguished from that of being loved--had still a place in his reduced sketch. He had only forbidden himself the riot of expression. However, he shouldn't inspire his cousin with a passion, nor would she be able, even should she try, to help him to one. "And now tell me about the young lady," he said to his mother. "What do you mean to do with her?" Mrs. Touchett was prompt. "I mean to ask your father to invite her to stay three or four weeks at Gardencourt." "You needn't stand on any such ceremony as that," said Ralph. "My father will ask her as a matter of course." "I don't know about that. She's my niece; she's not his." "Good Lord, dear mother; what a sense of property! That's all the more reason for his asking her. But after that--I mean after three months (for its absurd asking the poor girl to remain but for three or four paltry weeks)--what do you mean to do with her?" "I mean to take her to Paris. I mean to get her clothing." "Ah yes, that's of course. But independently of that?" "I shall invite her to spend the autumn with me in Florence." "You don't rise above detail, dear mother," said Ralph. "I should like to know what you mean to do with her in a general way." "My duty!" Mrs. Touchett declared. "I suppose you pity her very much," she added. "No, I don't think I pity her. She doesn't strike me as inviting compassion. I think I envy her. Before being sure, however, give me a hint of where you see your duty." "In showing her four European countries--I shall leave her the choice of two of them--and in giving her the opportunity of perfecting herself in French, which she already knows very well." Ralph frowned a little. "That sounds rather dry--even allowing her the choice of two of the countries." "If it's dry," said his mother with a laugh, "you can leave Isabel alone to water it! She is as good as a summer rain, any day." "Do you mean she's a gifted being?" "I don't know whether she's a gifted being, but she's a clever girl--with a strong will and a high temper. She has no idea of being bored." "I can imagine that," said Ralph; and then he added abruptly: "How do you two get on?" "Do you mean by that that I'm a bore? I don't think she finds me one. Some girls might, I know; but Isabel's too clever for that. I think I greatly amuse her. We get on because I understand her, I know the sort of girl she is. She's very frank, and I'm very frank: we know just what to expect of each other." "Ah, dear mother," Ralph exclaimed, "one always knows what to expect of you! You've never surprised me but once, and that's to-day--in presenting me with a pretty cousin whose existence I had never suspected." "Do you think her so very pretty?" "Very pretty indeed; but I don't insist upon that. It's her general air of being some one in particular that strikes me. Who is this rare creature, and what is she? Where did you find her, and how did you make her acquaintance?" "I found her in an old house at Albany, sitting in a dreary room on a rainy day, reading a heavy book and boring herself to death. She didn't know she was bored, but when I left her no doubt of it she seemed very grateful for the service. You may say I shouldn't have enlightened he--I should have let her alone. There's a good deal in that, but I acted conscientiously; I thought she was meant for something better. It occurred to me that it would be a kindness to take her about and introduce her to the world. She thinks she knows a great deal of it--like most American girls; but like most American girls she's ridiculously mistaken. If you want to know, I thought she would do me credit. I like to be well thought of, and for a woman of my age there's no greater convenience, in some ways, than an attractive niece. You know I had seen nothing of my sister's children for years; I disapproved entirely of the father. But I always meant to do something for them when he should have gone to his reward. I ascertained where they were to be found and, without any preliminaries, went and introduced myself. There are two others of them, both of whom are married; but I saw only the elder, who has, by the way, a very uncivil husband. The wife, whose name is Lily, jumped at the idea of my taking an interest in Isabel; she said it was just what her sister needed--that some one should take an interest in her. She spoke of her as you might speak of some young person of genius--in want of encouragement and patronage. It may be that Isabel's a genius; but in that case I've not yet learned her special line. Mrs. Ludlow was especially keen about my taking her to Europe; they all regard Europe over there as a land of emigration, of rescue, a refuge for their superfluous population. Isabel herself seemed very glad to come, and the thing was easily arranged. There was a little difficulty about the money-question, as she seemed averse to being under pecuniary obligations. But she has a small income and she supposes herself to be travelling at her own expense." Ralph had listened attentively to this judicious report, by which his interest in the subject of it was not impaired. "Ah, if she's a genius," he said, "we must find out her special line. Is it by chance for flirting?" "I don't think so. You may suspect that at first, but you'll be wrong. You won't, I think, in any way, be easily right about her." "Warburton's wrong then!" Ralph rejoicingly exclaimed. "He flatters himself he has made that discovery." His mother shook her head. "Lord Warburton won't understand her. He needn't try." "He's very intelligent," said Ralph; "but it's right he should be puzzled once in a while." "Isabel will enjoy puzzling a lord," Mrs. Touchett remarked. Her son frowned a little. "What does she know about lords?" "Nothing at all: that will puzzle him all the more." Ralph greeted these words with a laugh and looked out of the window. Then, "Are you not going down to see my father?" he asked. "At a quarter to eight," said Mrs. Touchett. Her son looked at his watch. "You've another quarter of an hour then. Tell me some more about Isabel." After which, as Mrs. Touchett declined his invitation, declaring that he must find out for himself, "Well," he pursued, "she'll certainly do you credit. But won't she also give you trouble?" "I hope not; but if she does I shall not shrink from it. I never do that." "She strikes me as very natural," said Ralph. "Natural people are not the most trouble." "No," said Ralph; "you yourself are a proof of that. You're extremely natural, and I'm sure you have never troubled any one. It takes trouble to do that. But tell me this; it just occurs to me. Is Isabel capable of making herself disagreeable?" "Ah," cried his mother, "you ask too many questions! Find that out for yourself." His questions, however, were not exhausted. "All this time," he said, "you've not told me what you intend to do with her." "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." "What you meant then, in your telegram, was that her character's independent." "I never know what I mean in my telegrams--especially those I send from America. Clearness is too expensive. Come down to your father." "It's not yet a quarter to eight," said Ralph. "I must allow for his impatience," Mrs. Touchett answered. Ralph knew what to think of his father's impatience; but, making no rejoinder, he offered his mother his arm. This put it in his power, as they descended together, to stop her a moment on the middle landing of the staircase--the broad, low, wide-armed staircase of time-blackened oak which was one of the most striking features of Gardencourt. "You've no plan of marrying her?" he smiled. "Marrying her? I should be sorry to play her such a trick! But apart from that, she's perfectly able to marry herself. She has every facility." "Do you mean to say she has a husband picked out?" "I don't know about a husband, but there's a young man in Boston--!" Ralph went on; he had no desire to hear about the young man in Boston. "As my father says, they're always engaged!" His mother had told him that he must satisfy his curiosity at the source, and it soon became evident he should not want for occasion. He had a good deal of talk with his young kinswoman when the two had been left together in the drawing-room. Lord Warburton, who had ridden over from his own house, some ten miles distant, remounted and took his departure before dinner; and an hour after this meal was ended Mr. and Mrs. Touchett, who appeared to have quite emptied the measure of their forms, withdrew, under the valid pretext of fatigue, to their respective apartments. The young man spent an hour with his cousin; though she had been travelling half the day she appeared in no degree spent. She was really tired; she knew it, and knew she should pay for it on the morrow; but it was her habit at this period to carry exhaustion to the furthest point and confess to it only when dissimulation broke down. A fine hypocrisy was for the present possible; she was interested; she was, as she said to herself, floated. She asked Ralph to show her the pictures; there were a great many in the house, most of them of his own choosing. The best were arranged in an oaken gallery, of charming proportions, which had a sitting-room at either end of it and which in the evening was usually lighted. The light was insufficient to show the pictures to advantage, and the visit might have stood over to the morrow. This suggestion Ralph had ventured to make; but Isabel looked disappointed--smiling still, however--and said: "If you please I should like to see them just a little." She was eager, she knew she was eager and now seemed so; she couldn't help it. "She doesn't take suggestions," Ralph said to himself; but he said it without irritation; her pressure amused and even pleased him. The lamps were on brackets, at intervals, and if the light was imperfect it was genial. It fell upon the vague squares of rich colour and on the faded gilding of heavy frames; it made a sheen on the polished floor of the gallery. Ralph took a candlestick and moved about, pointing out the things he liked; Isabel, inclining to one picture after another, indulged in little exclamations and murmurs. She was evidently a judge; she had a natural taste; he was struck with that. She took a candlestick herself and held it slowly here and there; she lifted it high, and as she did so he found himself pausing in the middle of the place and bending his eyes much less upon the pictures than on her presence. He lost nothing, in truth, by these wandering glances, for she was better worth looking at than most works of art. She was undeniably spare, and ponderably light, and proveably tall; when people had wished to distinguish her from the other two Miss Archers they had always called her the willowy one. Her hair, which was dark even to blackness, had been an object of envy to many women; her light grey eyes, a little too firm perhaps in her graver moments, had an enchanting range of concession. They walked slowly up one side of the gallery and down the other, and then she said: "Well, now I know more than I did when I began!" "You apparently have a great passion for knowledge," her cousin returned. "I think I have; most girls are horridly ignorant." "You strike me as different from most girls." "Ah, some of them would--but the way they're talked to!" murmured Isabel, who preferred not to dilate just yet on herself. Then in a moment, to change the subject, "Please tell me--isn't there a ghost?" she went on. "A ghost?" "A castle-spectre, a thing that appears. We call them ghosts in America." "So we do here, when we see them." "You do see them then? You ought to, in this romantic old house." "It's not a romantic old house," said Ralph. "You'll be disappointed if you count on that. It's a dismally prosaic one; there's no romance here but what you may have brought with you." "I've brought a great deal; but it seems to me I've brought it to the right place." "To keep it out of harm, certainly; nothing will ever happen to it here, between my father and me." Isabel looked at him a moment. "Is there never any one here but your father and you?" "My mother, of course." "Oh, I know your mother; she's not romantic. Haven't you other people?" "Very few." "I'm sorry for that; I like so much to see people." "Oh, we'll invite all the county to amuse you," said Ralph. "Now you're making fun of me," the girl answered rather gravely. "Who was the gentleman on the lawn when I arrived?" "A county neighbour; he doesn't come very often." "I'm sorry for that; I liked him," said Isabel. "Why, it seemed to me that you barely spoke to him," Ralph objected. "Never mind, I like him all the same. I like your father too, immensely." "You can't do better than that. He's the dearest of the dear." "I'm so sorry he is ill," said Isabel. "You must help me to nurse him; you ought to be a good nurse." "I don't think I am; I've been told I'm not; I'm said to have too many theories. But you haven't told me about the ghost," she added. Ralph, however, gave no heed to this observation. "You like my father and you like Lord Warburton. I infer also that you like my mother." "I like your mother very much, because--because--" And Isabel found herself attempting to assign a reason for her affection for Mrs. Touchett. "Ah, we never know why!" said her companion, laughing. "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." "So you adore her--out of perversity? Well, I take greatly after my mother," said Ralph. "I don't believe you do at all. You wish people to like you, and you try to make them do it." "Good heavens, how you see through one!" he cried with a dismay that was not altogether jocular. "But I like you all the same," his cousin went on. "The way to clinch the matter will be to show me the ghost." Ralph shook his head sadly. "I might show it to you, but you'd never see it. The privilege isn't given to every one; it's not enviable. It has never been seen by a young, happy, innocent person like you. You must have suffered first, have suffered greatly, have gained some miserable knowledge. In that way your eyes are opened to it. I saw it long ago," said Ralph. "I told you just now I'm very fond of knowledge," Isabel answered. "Yes, of happy knowledge--of pleasant knowledge. But you haven't suffered, and you're not made to suffer. I hope you'll never see the ghost!" She had listened to him attentively, with a smile on her lips, but with a certain gravity in her eyes. Charming as he found her, she had struck him as rather presumptuous--indeed it was a part of her charm; and he wondered what she would say. "I'm not afraid, you know," she said: which seemed quite presumptuous enough. "You're not afraid of suffering?" "Yes, I'm afraid of suffering. But I'm not afraid of ghosts. And I think people suffer too easily," she added. "I don't believe you do," said Ralph, looking at her with his hands in his pockets. "I don't think that's a fault," she answered. "It's not absolutely necessary to suffer; we were not made for that." "You were not, certainly." "I'm not speaking of myself." And she wandered off a little. "No, it isn't a fault," said her cousin. "It's a merit to be strong." "Only, if you don't suffer they call you hard," Isabel remarked. 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." She looked at him a little; she had taken her candle and placed her foot on the oaken stair. "Well," she said, "that's what I came to Europe for, to be as happy as possible. Good-night." "Good-night! I wish you all success, and shall be very glad to contribute to it!" She turned away, and he watched her as she slowly ascended. Then, with his hands always in his pockets, he went back to the empty drawing-room.

At the opening of Chapter 5, Ralph Touchett knocks on his mother's door eagerly. His mother is described as being more fatherly, her father, as more motherly. Ralph's father, Mr. Daniel Touchett, is described as having adopted England as his country because he found it sane and accommodating. Yet he also had no great desire to render himself less American. Ralph therefore spent many terms at an American school, has a degree from an American university, but he also spent three years at Oxford. Ralph is therefore well accustomed to English manners, and appeared English from the outside, but his mind is described as enjoying independence. He did well at Oxford, but he was prevented from having a successful career in England because he was American. Ralph admires his father but has no aptitude for banking himself. Ralph appreciates his father's "fine ivory surface" mostly -- that is, his father's impenetrability to the ideas of others, his father's "originality". Mr. Daniel Touchett has been successful because he is less pliant than many other Americans. Ralph had worked briefly at his father's bank before he caught a violent sickness; he is a consumptive. This is a deadly disease, but it is described optimistically, insofar as Ralph believes he will survive quite a few winters. He always goes abroad during the winter because of this disease. He comforts himself with the thought that he had not really had ambition to do much in his life in the first place. One winter though, he stayed too long in England, and arrived more "dead than alive" in Algiers. After this scare, his attitude changed: he no longer felt he had to struggle to distinguish himself. His friends then know him as more serene. He though does still have the prospect of being in love in his future, although he has forbidden himself an "expression" of this. Ralph Touchett converses with his mother about Isabel, and he jokes that he speaks about her like a piece of "property". He asks what she means to do with her. Mrs. Touchett answers practically, when Ralph has asked the question in the abstract. Mrs. Touchett talks about buying her clothing, bringing her to Paris, and so forth. I should like to know what you mean to do with her in a general way," Ralph responds. Mrs. Touchett tells Ralph where she found Isabel. She thinks Isabel may be a "genius," but she does not yet know in what. Ralph asks if she is a genius in flirting, as Lord Warburton has suggested that to him, but Mrs. Touchett thinks that is not where Isabel's talents lie. Ralph delights in the idea that Isabel might be a "puzzle" to Lord Warburton. Ralph persists in asking what Mrs. Touchett plans to "do" with her, and then asks if she plans to get her to marry someone in Europe. Mrs. Touchett responds, "She's perfectly able to marry herself," implying that she does not plan on assisting her in that regard. Mrs. Touchett does not know if Isabel is already engaged. Ralph then goes to show Isabel around the house. He watches her inspecting some of the art in their gallery, and he notes that she has "taste" and a judging eye. He also notes that she has a great passion for knowledge. Isabel wants to know if there is a ghost in their mansion. Ralph responds that their house is "dismally prosaic" and that there is no romance there "but what you may have brought with you ". Isabel asks if there are more people around there house, saying that she liked Ralph's father and his friend, Lord Warburton. She also likes Mrs. Touchett, she declares, because Mrs. Touchett does not expect one to like her. She goes on to assert that she likes Ralph too, even though he is the opposite of Mrs. Touchett in caring what others think of him. Isabel and Ralph conclude the conversation by agreeing that the great point is to be as happy as possible, and that one does not need to suffer

summary

Ralph Touchett was a philosopher, but nevertheless he knocked at his mother's door (at a quarter to seven) with a good deal of eagerness. Even philosophers have their preferences, and it must be admitted that of his progenitors his father ministered most to his sense of the sweetness of filial dependence. His father, as he had often said to himself, was the more motherly; his mother, on the other hand, was paternal, and even, according to the slang of the day, gubernatorial. She was nevertheless very fond of her only child and had always insisted on his spending three months of the year with her. Ralph rendered perfect justice to her affection and knew that in her thoughts and her thoroughly arranged and servanted life his turn always came after the other nearest subjects of her solicitude, the various punctualities of performance of the workers of her will. He found her completely dressed for dinner, but she embraced her boy with her gloved hands and made him sit on the sofa beside her. She enquired scrupulously about her husband's health and about the young man's own, and, receiving no very brilliant account of either, remarked that she was more than ever convinced of her wisdom in not exposing herself to the English climate. In this case she also might have given way. Ralph smiled at the idea of his mother's giving way, but made no point of reminding her that his own infirmity was not the result of the English climate, from which he absented himself for a considerable part of each year. He had been a very small boy when his father, Daniel Tracy Touchett, a native of Rutland, in the State of Vermont, came to England as subordinate partner in a banking-house where some ten years later he gained preponderant control. Daniel Touchett saw before him a life-long residence in his adopted country, of which, from the first, he took a simple, sane and accommodating view. But, as he said to himself, he had no intention of disamericanising, nor had he a desire to teach his only son any such subtle art. It had been for himself so very soluble a problem to live in England assimilated yet unconverted that it seemed to him equally simple his lawful heir should after his death carry on the grey old bank in the white American light. He was at pains to intensify this light, however, by sending the boy home for his education. Ralph spent several terms at an American school and took a degree at an American university, after which, as he struck his father on his return as even redundantly native, he was placed for some three years in residence at Oxford. Oxford swallowed up Harvard, and Ralph became at last English enough. His outward conformity to the manners that surrounded him was none the less the mask of a mind that greatly enjoyed its independence, on which nothing long imposed itself, and which, naturally inclined to adventure and irony, indulged in a boundless liberty of appreciation. He began with being a young man of promise; at Oxford he distinguished himself, to his father's ineffable satisfaction, and the people about him said it was a thousand pities so clever a fellow should be shut out from a career. He might have had a career by returning to his own country (though this point is shrouded in uncertainty) and even if Mr. Touchett had been willing to part with him (which was not the case) it would have gone hard with him to put a watery waste permanently between himself and the old man whom he regarded as his best friend. Ralph was not only fond of his father, he admired him--he enjoyed the opportunity of observing him. Daniel Touchett, to his perception, was a man of genius, and though he himself had no aptitude for the banking mystery he made a point of learning enough of it to measure the great figure his father had played. It was not this, however, he mainly relished; it was the fine ivory surface, polished as by the English air, that the old man had opposed to possibilities of penetration. Daniel Touchett had been neither at Harvard nor at Oxford, and it was his own fault if he had placed in his son's hands the key to modern criticism. Ralph, whose head was full of ideas which his father had never guessed, had a high esteem for the latter's originality. Americans, rightly or wrongly, are commended for the ease with which they adapt themselves to foreign conditions; but Mr. Touchett had made of the very limits of his pliancy half the ground of his general success. He had retained in their freshness most of his marks of primary pressure; his tone, as his son always noted with pleasure, was that of the more luxuriant parts of New England. At the end of his life he had become, on his own ground, as mellow as he was rich; he combined consummate shrewdness with the disposition superficially to fraternise, and his "social position," on which he had never wasted a care, had the firm perfection of an unthumbed fruit. It was perhaps his want of imagination and of what is called the historic consciousness; but to many of the impressions usually made by English life upon the cultivated stranger his sense was completely closed. There were certain differences he had never perceived, certain habits he had never formed, certain obscurities he had never sounded. As regards these latter, on the day he had sounded them his son would have thought less well of him. Ralph, on leaving Oxford, had spent a couple of years in travelling; after which he had found himself perched on a high stool in his father's bank. The responsibility and honour of such positions is not, I believe, measured by the height of the stool, which depends upon other considerations: Ralph, indeed, who had very long legs, was fond of standing, and even of walking about, at his work. To this exercise, however, he was obliged to devote but a limited period, for at the end of some eighteen months he had become aware of his being seriously out of health. He had caught a violent cold, which fixed itself on his lungs and threw them into dire confusion. He had to give up work and apply, to the letter, the sorry injunction to take care of himself. At first he slighted the task; it appeared to him it was not himself in the least he was taking care of, but an uninteresting and uninterested person with whom he had nothing in common. This person, however, improved on acquaintance, and Ralph grew at last to have a certain grudging tolerance, even an undemonstrative respect, for him. Misfortune makes strange bedfellows, and our young man, feeling that he had something at stake in the matter--it usually struck him as his reputation for ordinary wit--devoted to his graceless charge an amount of attention of which note was duly taken and which had at least the effect of keeping the poor fellow alive. One of his lungs began to heal, the other promised to follow its example, and he was assured he might outweather a dozen winters if he would betake himself to those climates in which consumptives chiefly congregate. As he had grown extremely fond of London, he cursed the flatness of exile: but at the same time that he cursed he conformed, and gradually, when he found his sensitive organ grateful even for grim favours, he conferred them with a lighter hand. He wintered abroad, as the phrase is; basked in the sun, stopped at home when the wind blew, went to bed when it rained, and once or twice, when it had snowed overnight, almost never got up again. A secret hoard of indifference--like a thick cake a fond old nurse might have slipped into his first school outfit--came to his aid and helped to reconcile him to sacrifice; since at the best he was too ill for aught but that arduous game. As he said to himself, there was really nothing he had wanted very much to do, so that he had at least not renounced the field of valour. 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. But this vision was dispelled some three years before the occurrence of the incidents with which this history opens: he had on that occasion remained later than usual in England and had been overtaken by bad weather before reaching Algiers. He arrived more dead than alive and lay there for several weeks between life and death. His convalescence was a miracle, but the first use he made of it was to assure himself that such miracles happen but once. He said to himself that his hour was in sight and that it behoved him to keep his eyes upon it, yet that it was also open to him to spend the interval as agreeably as might be consistent with such a preoccupation. With the prospect of losing them the simple use of his faculties became an exquisite pleasure; it seemed to him the joys of contemplation had never been sounded. He was far from the time when he had found it hard that he should be obliged to give up the idea of distinguishing himself; an idea none the less importunate for being vague and none the less delightful for having had to struggle in the same breast with bursts of inspiring self-criticism. 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. If he was consideringly disposed, something told him, here was occupation enough for a succession of days. It may be added, in summary fashion, that the imagination of loving--as distinguished from that of being loved--had still a place in his reduced sketch. He had only forbidden himself the riot of expression. However, he shouldn't inspire his cousin with a passion, nor would she be able, even should she try, to help him to one. "And now tell me about the young lady," he said to his mother. "What do you mean to do with her?" Mrs. Touchett was prompt. "I mean to ask your father to invite her to stay three or four weeks at Gardencourt." "You needn't stand on any such ceremony as that," said Ralph. "My father will ask her as a matter of course." "I don't know about that. She's my niece; she's not his." "Good Lord, dear mother; what a sense of property! That's all the more reason for his asking her. But after that--I mean after three months (for its absurd asking the poor girl to remain but for three or four paltry weeks)--what do you mean to do with her?" "I mean to take her to Paris. I mean to get her clothing." "Ah yes, that's of course. But independently of that?" "I shall invite her to spend the autumn with me in Florence." "You don't rise above detail, dear mother," said Ralph. "I should like to know what you mean to do with her in a general way." "My duty!" Mrs. Touchett declared. "I suppose you pity her very much," she added. "No, I don't think I pity her. She doesn't strike me as inviting compassion. I think I envy her. Before being sure, however, give me a hint of where you see your duty." "In showing her four European countries--I shall leave her the choice of two of them--and in giving her the opportunity of perfecting herself in French, which she already knows very well." Ralph frowned a little. "That sounds rather dry--even allowing her the choice of two of the countries." "If it's dry," said his mother with a laugh, "you can leave Isabel alone to water it! She is as good as a summer rain, any day." "Do you mean she's a gifted being?" "I don't know whether she's a gifted being, but she's a clever girl--with a strong will and a high temper. She has no idea of being bored." "I can imagine that," said Ralph; and then he added abruptly: "How do you two get on?" "Do you mean by that that I'm a bore? I don't think she finds me one. Some girls might, I know; but Isabel's too clever for that. I think I greatly amuse her. We get on because I understand her, I know the sort of girl she is. She's very frank, and I'm very frank: we know just what to expect of each other." "Ah, dear mother," Ralph exclaimed, "one always knows what to expect of you! You've never surprised me but once, and that's to-day--in presenting me with a pretty cousin whose existence I had never suspected." "Do you think her so very pretty?" "Very pretty indeed; but I don't insist upon that. It's her general air of being some one in particular that strikes me. Who is this rare creature, and what is she? Where did you find her, and how did you make her acquaintance?" "I found her in an old house at Albany, sitting in a dreary room on a rainy day, reading a heavy book and boring herself to death. She didn't know she was bored, but when I left her no doubt of it she seemed very grateful for the service. You may say I shouldn't have enlightened he--I should have let her alone. There's a good deal in that, but I acted conscientiously; I thought she was meant for something better. It occurred to me that it would be a kindness to take her about and introduce her to the world. She thinks she knows a great deal of it--like most American girls; but like most American girls she's ridiculously mistaken. If you want to know, I thought she would do me credit. I like to be well thought of, and for a woman of my age there's no greater convenience, in some ways, than an attractive niece. You know I had seen nothing of my sister's children for years; I disapproved entirely of the father. But I always meant to do something for them when he should have gone to his reward. I ascertained where they were to be found and, without any preliminaries, went and introduced myself. There are two others of them, both of whom are married; but I saw only the elder, who has, by the way, a very uncivil husband. The wife, whose name is Lily, jumped at the idea of my taking an interest in Isabel; she said it was just what her sister needed--that some one should take an interest in her. She spoke of her as you might speak of some young person of genius--in want of encouragement and patronage. It may be that Isabel's a genius; but in that case I've not yet learned her special line. Mrs. Ludlow was especially keen about my taking her to Europe; they all regard Europe over there as a land of emigration, of rescue, a refuge for their superfluous population. Isabel herself seemed very glad to come, and the thing was easily arranged. There was a little difficulty about the money-question, as she seemed averse to being under pecuniary obligations. But she has a small income and she supposes herself to be travelling at her own expense." Ralph had listened attentively to this judicious report, by which his interest in the subject of it was not impaired. "Ah, if she's a genius," he said, "we must find out her special line. Is it by chance for flirting?" "I don't think so. You may suspect that at first, but you'll be wrong. You won't, I think, in any way, be easily right about her." "Warburton's wrong then!" Ralph rejoicingly exclaimed. "He flatters himself he has made that discovery." His mother shook her head. "Lord Warburton won't understand her. He needn't try." "He's very intelligent," said Ralph; "but it's right he should be puzzled once in a while." "Isabel will enjoy puzzling a lord," Mrs. Touchett remarked. Her son frowned a little. "What does she know about lords?" "Nothing at all: that will puzzle him all the more." Ralph greeted these words with a laugh and looked out of the window. Then, "Are you not going down to see my father?" he asked. "At a quarter to eight," said Mrs. Touchett. Her son looked at his watch. "You've another quarter of an hour then. Tell me some more about Isabel." After which, as Mrs. Touchett declined his invitation, declaring that he must find out for himself, "Well," he pursued, "she'll certainly do you credit. But won't she also give you trouble?" "I hope not; but if she does I shall not shrink from it. I never do that." "She strikes me as very natural," said Ralph. "Natural people are not the most trouble." "No," said Ralph; "you yourself are a proof of that. You're extremely natural, and I'm sure you have never troubled any one. It takes trouble to do that. But tell me this; it just occurs to me. Is Isabel capable of making herself disagreeable?" "Ah," cried his mother, "you ask too many questions! Find that out for yourself." His questions, however, were not exhausted. "All this time," he said, "you've not told me what you intend to do with her." "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." "What you meant then, in your telegram, was that her character's independent." "I never know what I mean in my telegrams--especially those I send from America. Clearness is too expensive. Come down to your father." "It's not yet a quarter to eight," said Ralph. "I must allow for his impatience," Mrs. Touchett answered. Ralph knew what to think of his father's impatience; but, making no rejoinder, he offered his mother his arm. This put it in his power, as they descended together, to stop her a moment on the middle landing of the staircase--the broad, low, wide-armed staircase of time-blackened oak which was one of the most striking features of Gardencourt. "You've no plan of marrying her?" he smiled. "Marrying her? I should be sorry to play her such a trick! But apart from that, she's perfectly able to marry herself. She has every facility." "Do you mean to say she has a husband picked out?" "I don't know about a husband, but there's a young man in Boston--!" Ralph went on; he had no desire to hear about the young man in Boston. "As my father says, they're always engaged!" His mother had told him that he must satisfy his curiosity at the source, and it soon became evident he should not want for occasion. He had a good deal of talk with his young kinswoman when the two had been left together in the drawing-room. Lord Warburton, who had ridden over from his own house, some ten miles distant, remounted and took his departure before dinner; and an hour after this meal was ended Mr. and Mrs. Touchett, who appeared to have quite emptied the measure of their forms, withdrew, under the valid pretext of fatigue, to their respective apartments. The young man spent an hour with his cousin; though she had been travelling half the day she appeared in no degree spent. She was really tired; she knew it, and knew she should pay for it on the morrow; but it was her habit at this period to carry exhaustion to the furthest point and confess to it only when dissimulation broke down. A fine hypocrisy was for the present possible; she was interested; she was, as she said to herself, floated. She asked Ralph to show her the pictures; there were a great many in the house, most of them of his own choosing. The best were arranged in an oaken gallery, of charming proportions, which had a sitting-room at either end of it and which in the evening was usually lighted. The light was insufficient to show the pictures to advantage, and the visit might have stood over to the morrow. This suggestion Ralph had ventured to make; but Isabel looked disappointed--smiling still, however--and said: "If you please I should like to see them just a little." She was eager, she knew she was eager and now seemed so; she couldn't help it. "She doesn't take suggestions," Ralph said to himself; but he said it without irritation; her pressure amused and even pleased him. The lamps were on brackets, at intervals, and if the light was imperfect it was genial. It fell upon the vague squares of rich colour and on the faded gilding of heavy frames; it made a sheen on the polished floor of the gallery. Ralph took a candlestick and moved about, pointing out the things he liked; Isabel, inclining to one picture after another, indulged in little exclamations and murmurs. She was evidently a judge; she had a natural taste; he was struck with that. She took a candlestick herself and held it slowly here and there; she lifted it high, and as she did so he found himself pausing in the middle of the place and bending his eyes much less upon the pictures than on her presence. He lost nothing, in truth, by these wandering glances, for she was better worth looking at than most works of art. She was undeniably spare, and ponderably light, and proveably tall; when people had wished to distinguish her from the other two Miss Archers they had always called her the willowy one. Her hair, which was dark even to blackness, had been an object of envy to many women; her light grey eyes, a little too firm perhaps in her graver moments, had an enchanting range of concession. They walked slowly up one side of the gallery and down the other, and then she said: "Well, now I know more than I did when I began!" "You apparently have a great passion for knowledge," her cousin returned. "I think I have; most girls are horridly ignorant." "You strike me as different from most girls." "Ah, some of them would--but the way they're talked to!" murmured Isabel, who preferred not to dilate just yet on herself. Then in a moment, to change the subject, "Please tell me--isn't there a ghost?" she went on. "A ghost?" "A castle-spectre, a thing that appears. We call them ghosts in America." "So we do here, when we see them." "You do see them then? You ought to, in this romantic old house." "It's not a romantic old house," said Ralph. "You'll be disappointed if you count on that. It's a dismally prosaic one; there's no romance here but what you may have brought with you." "I've brought a great deal; but it seems to me I've brought it to the right place." "To keep it out of harm, certainly; nothing will ever happen to it here, between my father and me." Isabel looked at him a moment. "Is there never any one here but your father and you?" "My mother, of course." "Oh, I know your mother; she's not romantic. Haven't you other people?" "Very few." "I'm sorry for that; I like so much to see people." "Oh, we'll invite all the county to amuse you," said Ralph. "Now you're making fun of me," the girl answered rather gravely. "Who was the gentleman on the lawn when I arrived?" "A county neighbour; he doesn't come very often." "I'm sorry for that; I liked him," said Isabel. "Why, it seemed to me that you barely spoke to him," Ralph objected. "Never mind, I like him all the same. I like your father too, immensely." "You can't do better than that. He's the dearest of the dear." "I'm so sorry he is ill," said Isabel. "You must help me to nurse him; you ought to be a good nurse." "I don't think I am; I've been told I'm not; I'm said to have too many theories. But you haven't told me about the ghost," she added. Ralph, however, gave no heed to this observation. "You like my father and you like Lord Warburton. I infer also that you like my mother." "I like your mother very much, because--because--" And Isabel found herself attempting to assign a reason for her affection for Mrs. Touchett. "Ah, we never know why!" said her companion, laughing. "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." "So you adore her--out of perversity? Well, I take greatly after my mother," said Ralph. "I don't believe you do at all. You wish people to like you, and you try to make them do it." "Good heavens, how you see through one!" he cried with a dismay that was not altogether jocular. "But I like you all the same," his cousin went on. "The way to clinch the matter will be to show me the ghost." Ralph shook his head sadly. "I might show it to you, but you'd never see it. The privilege isn't given to every one; it's not enviable. It has never been seen by a young, happy, innocent person like you. You must have suffered first, have suffered greatly, have gained some miserable knowledge. In that way your eyes are opened to it. I saw it long ago," said Ralph. "I told you just now I'm very fond of knowledge," Isabel answered. "Yes, of happy knowledge--of pleasant knowledge. But you haven't suffered, and you're not made to suffer. I hope you'll never see the ghost!" She had listened to him attentively, with a smile on her lips, but with a certain gravity in her eyes. Charming as he found her, she had struck him as rather presumptuous--indeed it was a part of her charm; and he wondered what she would say. "I'm not afraid, you know," she said: which seemed quite presumptuous enough. "You're not afraid of suffering?" "Yes, I'm afraid of suffering. But I'm not afraid of ghosts. And I think people suffer too easily," she added. "I don't believe you do," said Ralph, looking at her with his hands in his pockets. "I don't think that's a fault," she answered. "It's not absolutely necessary to suffer; we were not made for that." "You were not, certainly." "I'm not speaking of myself." And she wandered off a little. "No, it isn't a fault," said her cousin. "It's a merit to be strong." "Only, if you don't suffer they call you hard," Isabel remarked. 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." She looked at him a little; she had taken her candle and placed her foot on the oaken stair. "Well," she said, "that's what I came to Europe for, to be as happy as possible. Good-night." "Good-night! I wish you all success, and shall be very glad to contribute to it!" She turned away, and he watched her as she slowly ascended. Then, with his hands always in his pockets, he went back to the empty drawing-room.

The narrator, in Chapter 6, portrays Isabel in a less flattering light. She is naive and thinks highly of herself even though she has never been put to the test. He foreshadows that such a test though, will come, and that this test will test her philosophy that she can really appear as she really is. Will Isabel end up being a hypocrite in appearing to be something she is not? Henry James' early and mid-career novels often bring up the "American theme" in which an American goes to Europe, bringing some freshness, innocence, money, moral Puritanism and hope to a decadent culture. These Americans are often disappointed in their expectations though. The Touchetts are depicted as an American family who are successful in Europe in spite of their American qualities. Ralph though, notably, is not quite a success. He has money and European manners, but he has not married into the aristocratic class. When Isabel and her uncle discuss the prospect of Isabel's "success," the actual pathway to success seems unclear. It is altogether possible that Isabel conceives of such success in such abstract terms as her own like-ability, and that Mr. Touchett is thinking of it practically -- in terms of her ability to marry into the upper echelons of society, and to achieve the same respect that a European aristocrat would achieve. Isabel's mind does not seem quite capable of formulating the concrete idea of marriage, and instead her desire for love seems to be frightening to her, a very vague idea that she does not want to assume concrete form, since it might threaten her notion of independence. Either way, it is a difficult task to be "successful" in Europe, because Americans were seen as coming from a less-respected culture and a lack of tradition. Ralph's observation that Isabel has good taste in painting foreshadows that Isabel will find herself interested in European aesthetics, a conventional aspect of European culture, even while she contradictorily critiques "conventionality" in a general sense.

analysis

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. It is true that among her contemporaries she passed for a young woman of extraordinary profundity; for these excellent people never withheld their admiration from a reach of intellect of which they themselves were not conscious, and spoke of Isabel as a prodigy of learning, a creature reported to have read the classic authors--in translations. 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 Miss Varians. Practically, Mrs. Varian's acquaintance with literature was confined to The New York Interviewer; as she very justly said, after you had read the Interviewer you had lost all faith in culture. Her tendency, with this, was rather to keep the Interviewer out of the way of her daughters; she was determined to bring them up properly, and they read nothing at all. Her impression with regard to Isabel's labours was quite illusory; the girl had never attempted to write a book and had no desire for the laurels of authorship. She had no talent for expression and too little of the consciousness of genius; she only had a general idea that people were right when they treated her as if she were rather superior. Whether or no she were superior, people were right in admiring her if they thought her so; for it seemed to her often that her mind moved more quickly than theirs, and this encouraged an impatience that might easily be confounded with superiority. It may be affirmed without delay that Isabel was probably very liable to the sin of self-esteem; she often surveyed with complacency the field of her own nature; she was in the habit of taking for granted, on scanty evidence, that she was right; she treated herself to occasions of homage. Meanwhile her errors and delusions were frequently such as a biographer interested in preserving the dignity of his subject must shrink from specifying. Her thoughts were a tangle of vague outlines which had never been corrected by the judgement of people speaking with authority. In matters of opinion she had had her own way, and it had led her into a thousand ridiculous zigzags. At moments she discovered she was grotesquely wrong, and then she treated herself to a week of passionate humility. After this she held her head higher than ever again; for it was of no use, she had an unquenchable desire to think well of herself. She had a theory that it was only under this provision life was worth living; that one should be one of the best, should be conscious of a fine organisation (she couldn't help knowing her organisation was fine), should move in a realm of light, of natural wisdom, of happy impulse, of inspiration gracefully chronic. It was almost as unnecessary to cultivate doubt of one's self as to cultivate doubt of one's best friend: one should try to be one's own best friend and to give one's self, in this manner, distinguished company. The girl had a certain nobleness of imagination which rendered her a good many services and played her a great many tricks. 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 person, presented only as a contingency, caused her at moments to hold her breath. That always struck her as the worst thing that could happen to her. On the whole, reflectively, she was in no uncertainty about the things that were wrong. She had no love of their look, but when she fixed them hard she recognised them. It was wrong to be mean, to be jealous, to be false, to be cruel; she had seen very little of the evil of the world, but she had seen women who lied and who tried to hurt each other. Seeing such things had quickened her high spirit; it seemed indecent not to scorn them. Of course the danger of a high spirit was the danger of inconsistency--the danger of keeping up the flag after the place has surrendered; 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. Altogether, with her meagre knowledge, her inflated ideals, her confidence at once innocent and dogmatic, her temper at once exacting and indulgent, her mixture of curiosity and fastidiousness, of vivacity and indifference, her desire to look very well and to be if possible even better, her determination to see, to try, to know, her combination of the delicate, desultory, flame-like spirit and the eager and personal creature of conditions: she would be an easy victim of scientific criticism if she were not intended to awaken on the reader's part an impulse more tender and more purely expectant. It was one of her theories that Isabel Archer was very fortunate in being independent, and that she ought to make some very enlightened use of that state. She never called it the state of solitude, much less of singleness; she thought such descriptions weak, and, besides, her sister Lily constantly urged her to come and abide. She had a friend whose acquaintance she had made shortly before her father's death, who offered so high an example of useful activity that Isabel always thought of her as a model. Henrietta Stackpole had the advantage of an admired ability; she was thoroughly launched in journalism, and her letters to the Interviewer, from Washington, Newport, the White Mountains and other places, were universally quoted. Isabel pronounced them with confidence "ephemeral," but she esteemed the courage, energy and good-humour of the writer, who, without parents and without property, had adopted three of the children of an infirm and widowed sister and was paying their school-bills out of the proceeds of her literary labour. Henrietta was in the van of progress and had clear-cut views on most subjects; her cherished desire had long been to come to Europe and write a series of letters to the Interviewer from the radical point of view--an enterprise the less difficult as she knew perfectly in advance what her opinions would be and to how many objections most European institutions lay open. When she heard that Isabel was coming she wished to start at once; thinking, naturally, that it would be delightful the two should travel together. She had been obliged, however, to postpone this enterprise. She thought Isabel a glorious creature, and had spoken of her covertly in some of her letters, though she never mentioned the fact to her friend, who would not have taken pleasure in it and was not a regular student of the Interviewer. Henrietta, for Isabel, was chiefly a proof that a woman might suffice to herself and be happy. Her resources were of the obvious kind; but even if one had 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. The first on the list was a conviction of the vulgarity of thinking too much of it. From lapsing into eagerness on this point she earnestly prayed she might be delivered; she held that a woman ought to be able to live to herself, in the absence of exceptional flimsiness, and that it was perfectly possible to be happy without the society of a more or less coarse-minded person of another sex. The girl's prayer was very sufficiently answered; something pure and proud that there was in her--something cold and dry an unappreciated suitor with a taste for analysis might have called it--had hitherto kept her from any great vanity of conjecture on the article of possible husbands. Few of the men she saw seemed worth a ruinous expenditure, and it made her smile to think that one of them should present himself as an incentive to hope and a reward of patience. Deep in her soul--it was the deepest thing there--lay a belief that if a certain light should dawn she could give herself completely; but this image, on the whole, was too formidable to be attractive. Isabel's thoughts hovered about it, but they seldom rested on it long; 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 of one's spirit was harmless when one returned from it with a lapful of roses. But she was often reminded that there were other gardens in the world than those of her remarkable soul, and that there were moreover a great many places which were not gardens at all--only dusky pestiferous tracts, planted thick with ugliness and misery. In the current of that repaid curiosity on which she had lately been floating, which had conveyed her 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. She always returned to her theory that a young woman whom after all every one thought clever should begin by getting a general impression of life. This impression was necessary to prevent mistakes, and after it should be secured she might make the unfortunate condition of others a subject of special attention. England was a revelation to her, and she found herself as diverted as a child at a pantomime. In her infantine excursions to Europe she had seen only the Continent, and seen it from the nursery window; Paris, not London, was her father's Mecca, and into many of his interests there his children had naturally not entered. The images of that time moreover had grown faint and remote, and the old-world quality in everything that she now saw had all the charm of strangeness. Her uncle's house seemed a picture made real; no refinement of the agreeable was lost upon Isabel; the rich perfection of Gardencourt at once revealed a world and gratified a need. The large, low rooms, with brown ceilings and dusky corners, the deep embrasures and curious casements, the quiet light on dark, polished panels, the deep greenness outside, that seemed always peeping in, the sense of well-ordered privacy in the centre of a "property"--a place where sounds were felicitously accidental, where the tread was muffed by the earth itself and in the thick mild air all friction dropped out of contact and all shrillness out of talk--these things were much to the taste of our young lady, whose taste played a considerable part in her emotions. She formed a fast friendship with her uncle, and often sat by his chair when he had had it moved out to the lawn. He passed hours in the open air, sitting with folded hands like a placid, homely household god, a god of service, who had done his work and received his wages and was trying to grow used to weeks and months made up only of off-days. Isabel amused him more than she suspected--the effect she produced upon people was often different from what she supposed--and he frequently gave himself the pleasure of making her chatter. It was by this term that he qualified her conversation, which had much of the "point" observable in that of the young ladies of her country, to whom the ear of the world is more directly presented than to their sisters in other lands. Like the mass of American girls Isabel had been encouraged to express herself; her remarks had been attended to; she had been expected to have emotions and opinions. Many of her opinions had doubtless but a slender value, many of her emotions passed away in the utterance; but they had left a trace in giving her the habit of seeming at least to feel and think, and in imparting moreover to her words when she was really moved that prompt vividness which so many people had regarded as a sign of superiority. Mr. Touchett used to think that she reminded him of his wife when his wife was in her teens. It was because she was fresh and natural and quick to understand, to speak--so many characteristics of her niece--that he had fallen in love with Mrs. Touchett. He never expressed this analogy to the girl herself, however; for if Mrs. Touchett had once been like Isabel, Isabel was not at all like Mrs. Touchett. The old man was full of kindness for her; it was a long time, as he said, since they had had any young life in the house; and our rustling, quickly-moving, clear-voiced heroine was as agreeable to his sense as the sound of flowing water. He wanted to do something for her and wished she would ask it of him. She would ask nothing but questions; it is true that of these she asked a quantity. Her uncle had a great fund of answers, though her pressure sometimes came in forms that puzzled him. She questioned him immensely about England, about the British constitution, the English character, the state of politics, the manners and customs of the royal family, the peculiarities of the aristocracy, the way of living and thinking of his neighbours; and in begging to be enlightened on these points she usually enquired whether they corresponded with the descriptions in the books. The old man always looked at her a little with his fine dry smile while he smoothed down the shawl spread across his legs. "The books?" he once said; "well, I don't know much about the books. You must ask Ralph about that. I've always ascertained for myself--got my information in the natural form. I never asked many questions even; I just kept quiet and took notice. Of course I've had very good opportunities--better than what a young lady would naturally have. I'm of an inquisitive disposition, though you mightn't think it if you were to watch me: however much you might watch me I should be watching you more. I've been watching these people for upwards of thirty-five years, and I don't hesitate to say that I've acquired considerable information. It's a very fine country on the whole--finer perhaps than what we give it credit for on the other side. Several improvements I should like to see introduced; but the necessity of them doesn't seem to be generally felt as yet. When the necessity of a thing is generally felt they usually manage to accomplish it; 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." "Do you suppose that if I'm successful I shall feel at home?" Isabel asked. "I should think it very probable, and you certainly will be successful. They like American young ladies very much over here; they show them a great deal of kindness. But you mustn't feel too much at home, you know." "Oh, I'm by no means sure it will satisfy me," Isabel judicially emphasised. "I like the place very much, but I'm not sure I shall like the people." "The people are very good people; especially if you like them." "I've no doubt they're good," Isabel rejoined; "but are they pleasant in society? They won't rob me nor beat me; but will they make themselves agreeable to me? That's what I like people to do. I don't hesitate to say so, because I always appreciate it. I don't believe they're very nice to girls; they're not nice to them in the novels." "I don't know about the novels," said Mr. Touchett. "I believe the novels have a great deal but I don't suppose they're very accurate. We once had a lady who wrote novels staying here; she was a friend of Ralph's and he asked her down. She was very positive, quite up to everything; but she was not the sort of person you could depend on for evidence. Too free a fancy--I suppose that was it. She afterwards published a work of fiction in which she was understood to have given a representation--something in the nature of a caricature, as you might say--of my unworthy self. I didn't read it, but Ralph just handed me the book with the principal passages marked. It was understood to be a description of my conversation; American peculiarities, nasal twang, Yankee notions, stars and stripes. Well, it was not at all accurate; she couldn't have listened very attentively. I had no objection to her giving a report of my conversation, if she liked but I didn't like the idea that she hadn't taken the trouble to listen to it. Of course I talk like an American--I can't talk like a Hottentot. However I talk, I've made them understand me pretty well over here. But I don't talk like the old gentleman in that lady's novel. He wasn't an American; we wouldn't have him over there at any price. I just mention that fact to show you that they're not always accurate. Of course, as I've no daughters, and as Mrs. Touchett resides in Florence, I haven't had much chance to notice about the young ladies. It sometimes appears as if the young women in the lower class were not very well treated; but I guess their position is better in the upper and even to some extent in the middle." "Gracious," Isabel exclaimed; "how many classes have they? About fifty, I suppose." "Well, I don't know that I ever counted them. I never took much notice of the classes. That's the advantage of being an American here; you don't belong to any class." "I hope so," said Isabel. "Imagine one's belonging to an English class!" "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." "I'm much obliged to you," said the girl quickly. Her way of taking compliments seemed sometimes rather dry; she got rid of them as rapidly as possible. But as regards this she was sometimes misjudged; she was thought insensible to them, whereas in fact she was simply unwilling to show how infinitely they pleased her. To show that was to show too much. "I'm sure the English are very conventional," she added. "They've got everything pretty well fixed," Mr. Touchett admitted. "It's all settled beforehand--they don't leave it to the last moment." "I don't like to have everything settled beforehand," said the girl. "I like more unexpectedness." Her uncle seemed amused at her distinctness of preference. "Well, it's settled beforehand that you'll have great success," he rejoined. "I suppose you'll like that." "I shall not have success if they're too stupidly conventional. I'm not in the least stupidly conventional. I'm just the contrary. That's what they won't like." "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." "Ah well," said Isabel, standing before her uncle with her hands clasped about the belt of her black dress and looking up and down the lawn--"that will suit me perfectly!"

In Chapter 6, the narrator embarks on more description of Isabel's history, and other's perceptions of her. He describes Isabel as being an active young person "of many theories" with a "finer mind" than most others, and a "larger perception" of facts. One of her aunts, Mrs. Varian, once started a rumor that she was writing a novel, but Isabel had never attempted to do so. She is not a novelist, for she has no talent for expression. She is not exactly a genius, but she does regard herself highly, thinking that people are right in treating her as superior. Thus the narrator says she might be guilty of the "sin of self-esteem". Her actual thoughts though are described as a "tangle of vague outlines which had never been corrected by the judgment of people speaking with authority" and she had her own, stubborn way in her own unclear opinions. It seems to be her philosophy that life was only worth living if one thinks well of one's self. According to her, the worst thing that could happen to her seems to be that she might cause injury to someone else. She is unaware of the evil in the world, and flattered herself that she would never sink to the dangers of inconsistency which high self-esteem often brought: "Her life should always be in harmony with the most pleasing impression she could produce; she would be what she appeared, and she would appear what she was". She sometimes even imagines herself finding herself in a difficult, so that she might arise as a hero of the occasion, and prove herself. The narrator muses that Isabel might be a subject worthy of a scientific criticism were it not for her tendency to awaken the reader's tenderness. Isabel has a friend named Henrietta Stackpole, who is a journalist and financially independent. Henrietta is representative of a progressive woman who has "clear cut views" and is very radically liberal. Isabel thinks Henrietta is proof that a woman can be independent and happy. In respect to her own independence, Isabel's "deepest" thought in her mind is described as being the belief that she could give herself completely if a man should present herself as a husband, but she also finds the image "formidable" more than "attractive". Her mind only hovers around this thought. She sometimes even feels that she is immodest in being so happy, thinking others less unfortunate than herself. Overall she returns to the general theory that a young woman who everyone thinks is clever needs to get a "general impression of life". Isabel and her uncle get along quite well. She asks him many questions, and he provides her with a great number of answers about British politics and manners, neighborhood gossip. Isabel wonders if his description of things accords with the descriptions in books; and he responds that he would not know, having been always interested in finding things out in their natural form. Isabel notes that the people in Europe are not very kind to girls in novels, and wonders if they will similarly abuse her. Mr. Touchett notes that he was once incorporated into a novelist's description of England in a caricatured form -- and thus, people in novels are not always depicted accurately. He also expresses to Isabel that one advantage of being an American in Europe is that one does not belong to any class, unlike Europeans, who all belong to a class. Isabel thinks she will not be successful in Europe if Europeans prove to be conventional. Mr. Touchett thinks it's already been settled that Isabel will be a "success" in Europe

summary

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. It is true that among her contemporaries she passed for a young woman of extraordinary profundity; for these excellent people never withheld their admiration from a reach of intellect of which they themselves were not conscious, and spoke of Isabel as a prodigy of learning, a creature reported to have read the classic authors--in translations. 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 Miss Varians. Practically, Mrs. Varian's acquaintance with literature was confined to The New York Interviewer; as she very justly said, after you had read the Interviewer you had lost all faith in culture. Her tendency, with this, was rather to keep the Interviewer out of the way of her daughters; she was determined to bring them up properly, and they read nothing at all. Her impression with regard to Isabel's labours was quite illusory; the girl had never attempted to write a book and had no desire for the laurels of authorship. She had no talent for expression and too little of the consciousness of genius; she only had a general idea that people were right when they treated her as if she were rather superior. Whether or no she were superior, people were right in admiring her if they thought her so; for it seemed to her often that her mind moved more quickly than theirs, and this encouraged an impatience that might easily be confounded with superiority. It may be affirmed without delay that Isabel was probably very liable to the sin of self-esteem; she often surveyed with complacency the field of her own nature; she was in the habit of taking for granted, on scanty evidence, that she was right; she treated herself to occasions of homage. Meanwhile her errors and delusions were frequently such as a biographer interested in preserving the dignity of his subject must shrink from specifying. Her thoughts were a tangle of vague outlines which had never been corrected by the judgement of people speaking with authority. In matters of opinion she had had her own way, and it had led her into a thousand ridiculous zigzags. At moments she discovered she was grotesquely wrong, and then she treated herself to a week of passionate humility. After this she held her head higher than ever again; for it was of no use, she had an unquenchable desire to think well of herself. She had a theory that it was only under this provision life was worth living; that one should be one of the best, should be conscious of a fine organisation (she couldn't help knowing her organisation was fine), should move in a realm of light, of natural wisdom, of happy impulse, of inspiration gracefully chronic. It was almost as unnecessary to cultivate doubt of one's self as to cultivate doubt of one's best friend: one should try to be one's own best friend and to give one's self, in this manner, distinguished company. The girl had a certain nobleness of imagination which rendered her a good many services and played her a great many tricks. 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 person, presented only as a contingency, caused her at moments to hold her breath. That always struck her as the worst thing that could happen to her. On the whole, reflectively, she was in no uncertainty about the things that were wrong. She had no love of their look, but when she fixed them hard she recognised them. It was wrong to be mean, to be jealous, to be false, to be cruel; she had seen very little of the evil of the world, but she had seen women who lied and who tried to hurt each other. Seeing such things had quickened her high spirit; it seemed indecent not to scorn them. Of course the danger of a high spirit was the danger of inconsistency--the danger of keeping up the flag after the place has surrendered; 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. Altogether, with her meagre knowledge, her inflated ideals, her confidence at once innocent and dogmatic, her temper at once exacting and indulgent, her mixture of curiosity and fastidiousness, of vivacity and indifference, her desire to look very well and to be if possible even better, her determination to see, to try, to know, her combination of the delicate, desultory, flame-like spirit and the eager and personal creature of conditions: she would be an easy victim of scientific criticism if she were not intended to awaken on the reader's part an impulse more tender and more purely expectant. It was one of her theories that Isabel Archer was very fortunate in being independent, and that she ought to make some very enlightened use of that state. She never called it the state of solitude, much less of singleness; she thought such descriptions weak, and, besides, her sister Lily constantly urged her to come and abide. She had a friend whose acquaintance she had made shortly before her father's death, who offered so high an example of useful activity that Isabel always thought of her as a model. Henrietta Stackpole had the advantage of an admired ability; she was thoroughly launched in journalism, and her letters to the Interviewer, from Washington, Newport, the White Mountains and other places, were universally quoted. Isabel pronounced them with confidence "ephemeral," but she esteemed the courage, energy and good-humour of the writer, who, without parents and without property, had adopted three of the children of an infirm and widowed sister and was paying their school-bills out of the proceeds of her literary labour. Henrietta was in the van of progress and had clear-cut views on most subjects; her cherished desire had long been to come to Europe and write a series of letters to the Interviewer from the radical point of view--an enterprise the less difficult as she knew perfectly in advance what her opinions would be and to how many objections most European institutions lay open. When she heard that Isabel was coming she wished to start at once; thinking, naturally, that it would be delightful the two should travel together. She had been obliged, however, to postpone this enterprise. She thought Isabel a glorious creature, and had spoken of her covertly in some of her letters, though she never mentioned the fact to her friend, who would not have taken pleasure in it and was not a regular student of the Interviewer. Henrietta, for Isabel, was chiefly a proof that a woman might suffice to herself and be happy. Her resources were of the obvious kind; but even if one had 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. The first on the list was a conviction of the vulgarity of thinking too much of it. From lapsing into eagerness on this point she earnestly prayed she might be delivered; she held that a woman ought to be able to live to herself, in the absence of exceptional flimsiness, and that it was perfectly possible to be happy without the society of a more or less coarse-minded person of another sex. The girl's prayer was very sufficiently answered; something pure and proud that there was in her--something cold and dry an unappreciated suitor with a taste for analysis might have called it--had hitherto kept her from any great vanity of conjecture on the article of possible husbands. Few of the men she saw seemed worth a ruinous expenditure, and it made her smile to think that one of them should present himself as an incentive to hope and a reward of patience. Deep in her soul--it was the deepest thing there--lay a belief that if a certain light should dawn she could give herself completely; but this image, on the whole, was too formidable to be attractive. Isabel's thoughts hovered about it, but they seldom rested on it long; 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 of one's spirit was harmless when one returned from it with a lapful of roses. But she was often reminded that there were other gardens in the world than those of her remarkable soul, and that there were moreover a great many places which were not gardens at all--only dusky pestiferous tracts, planted thick with ugliness and misery. In the current of that repaid curiosity on which she had lately been floating, which had conveyed her 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. She always returned to her theory that a young woman whom after all every one thought clever should begin by getting a general impression of life. This impression was necessary to prevent mistakes, and after it should be secured she might make the unfortunate condition of others a subject of special attention. England was a revelation to her, and she found herself as diverted as a child at a pantomime. In her infantine excursions to Europe she had seen only the Continent, and seen it from the nursery window; Paris, not London, was her father's Mecca, and into many of his interests there his children had naturally not entered. The images of that time moreover had grown faint and remote, and the old-world quality in everything that she now saw had all the charm of strangeness. Her uncle's house seemed a picture made real; no refinement of the agreeable was lost upon Isabel; the rich perfection of Gardencourt at once revealed a world and gratified a need. The large, low rooms, with brown ceilings and dusky corners, the deep embrasures and curious casements, the quiet light on dark, polished panels, the deep greenness outside, that seemed always peeping in, the sense of well-ordered privacy in the centre of a "property"--a place where sounds were felicitously accidental, where the tread was muffed by the earth itself and in the thick mild air all friction dropped out of contact and all shrillness out of talk--these things were much to the taste of our young lady, whose taste played a considerable part in her emotions. She formed a fast friendship with her uncle, and often sat by his chair when he had had it moved out to the lawn. He passed hours in the open air, sitting with folded hands like a placid, homely household god, a god of service, who had done his work and received his wages and was trying to grow used to weeks and months made up only of off-days. Isabel amused him more than she suspected--the effect she produced upon people was often different from what she supposed--and he frequently gave himself the pleasure of making her chatter. It was by this term that he qualified her conversation, which had much of the "point" observable in that of the young ladies of her country, to whom the ear of the world is more directly presented than to their sisters in other lands. Like the mass of American girls Isabel had been encouraged to express herself; her remarks had been attended to; she had been expected to have emotions and opinions. Many of her opinions had doubtless but a slender value, many of her emotions passed away in the utterance; but they had left a trace in giving her the habit of seeming at least to feel and think, and in imparting moreover to her words when she was really moved that prompt vividness which so many people had regarded as a sign of superiority. Mr. Touchett used to think that she reminded him of his wife when his wife was in her teens. It was because she was fresh and natural and quick to understand, to speak--so many characteristics of her niece--that he had fallen in love with Mrs. Touchett. He never expressed this analogy to the girl herself, however; for if Mrs. Touchett had once been like Isabel, Isabel was not at all like Mrs. Touchett. The old man was full of kindness for her; it was a long time, as he said, since they had had any young life in the house; and our rustling, quickly-moving, clear-voiced heroine was as agreeable to his sense as the sound of flowing water. He wanted to do something for her and wished she would ask it of him. She would ask nothing but questions; it is true that of these she asked a quantity. Her uncle had a great fund of answers, though her pressure sometimes came in forms that puzzled him. She questioned him immensely about England, about the British constitution, the English character, the state of politics, the manners and customs of the royal family, the peculiarities of the aristocracy, the way of living and thinking of his neighbours; and in begging to be enlightened on these points she usually enquired whether they corresponded with the descriptions in the books. The old man always looked at her a little with his fine dry smile while he smoothed down the shawl spread across his legs. "The books?" he once said; "well, I don't know much about the books. You must ask Ralph about that. I've always ascertained for myself--got my information in the natural form. I never asked many questions even; I just kept quiet and took notice. Of course I've had very good opportunities--better than what a young lady would naturally have. I'm of an inquisitive disposition, though you mightn't think it if you were to watch me: however much you might watch me I should be watching you more. I've been watching these people for upwards of thirty-five years, and I don't hesitate to say that I've acquired considerable information. It's a very fine country on the whole--finer perhaps than what we give it credit for on the other side. Several improvements I should like to see introduced; but the necessity of them doesn't seem to be generally felt as yet. When the necessity of a thing is generally felt they usually manage to accomplish it; 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." "Do you suppose that if I'm successful I shall feel at home?" Isabel asked. "I should think it very probable, and you certainly will be successful. They like American young ladies very much over here; they show them a great deal of kindness. But you mustn't feel too much at home, you know." "Oh, I'm by no means sure it will satisfy me," Isabel judicially emphasised. "I like the place very much, but I'm not sure I shall like the people." "The people are very good people; especially if you like them." "I've no doubt they're good," Isabel rejoined; "but are they pleasant in society? They won't rob me nor beat me; but will they make themselves agreeable to me? That's what I like people to do. I don't hesitate to say so, because I always appreciate it. I don't believe they're very nice to girls; they're not nice to them in the novels." "I don't know about the novels," said Mr. Touchett. "I believe the novels have a great deal but I don't suppose they're very accurate. We once had a lady who wrote novels staying here; she was a friend of Ralph's and he asked her down. She was very positive, quite up to everything; but she was not the sort of person you could depend on for evidence. Too free a fancy--I suppose that was it. She afterwards published a work of fiction in which she was understood to have given a representation--something in the nature of a caricature, as you might say--of my unworthy self. I didn't read it, but Ralph just handed me the book with the principal passages marked. It was understood to be a description of my conversation; American peculiarities, nasal twang, Yankee notions, stars and stripes. Well, it was not at all accurate; she couldn't have listened very attentively. I had no objection to her giving a report of my conversation, if she liked but I didn't like the idea that she hadn't taken the trouble to listen to it. Of course I talk like an American--I can't talk like a Hottentot. However I talk, I've made them understand me pretty well over here. But I don't talk like the old gentleman in that lady's novel. He wasn't an American; we wouldn't have him over there at any price. I just mention that fact to show you that they're not always accurate. Of course, as I've no daughters, and as Mrs. Touchett resides in Florence, I haven't had much chance to notice about the young ladies. It sometimes appears as if the young women in the lower class were not very well treated; but I guess their position is better in the upper and even to some extent in the middle." "Gracious," Isabel exclaimed; "how many classes have they? About fifty, I suppose." "Well, I don't know that I ever counted them. I never took much notice of the classes. That's the advantage of being an American here; you don't belong to any class." "I hope so," said Isabel. "Imagine one's belonging to an English class!" "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." "I'm much obliged to you," said the girl quickly. Her way of taking compliments seemed sometimes rather dry; she got rid of them as rapidly as possible. But as regards this she was sometimes misjudged; she was thought insensible to them, whereas in fact she was simply unwilling to show how infinitely they pleased her. To show that was to show too much. "I'm sure the English are very conventional," she added. "They've got everything pretty well fixed," Mr. Touchett admitted. "It's all settled beforehand--they don't leave it to the last moment." "I don't like to have everything settled beforehand," said the girl. "I like more unexpectedness." Her uncle seemed amused at her distinctness of preference. "Well, it's settled beforehand that you'll have great success," he rejoined. "I suppose you'll like that." "I shall not have success if they're too stupidly conventional. I'm not in the least stupidly conventional. I'm just the contrary. That's what they won't like." "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." "Ah well," said Isabel, standing before her uncle with her hands clasped about the belt of her black dress and looking up and down the lawn--"that will suit me perfectly!"

The narrator, in Chapter 6, portrays Isabel in a less flattering light. She is naive and thinks highly of herself even though she has never been put to the test. He foreshadows that such a test though, will come, and that this test will test her philosophy that she can really appear as she really is. Will Isabel end up being a hypocrite in appearing to be something she is not? Henry James' early and mid-career novels often bring up the "American theme" in which an American goes to Europe, bringing some freshness, innocence, money, moral Puritanism and hope to a decadent culture. These Americans are often disappointed in their expectations though. The Touchetts are depicted as an American family who are successful in Europe in spite of their American qualities. Ralph though, notably, is not quite a success. He has money and European manners, but he has not married into the aristocratic class. When Isabel and her uncle discuss the prospect of Isabel's "success," the actual pathway to success seems unclear. It is altogether possible that Isabel conceives of such success in such abstract terms as her own like-ability, and that Mr. Touchett is thinking of it practically -- in terms of her ability to marry into the upper echelons of society, and to achieve the same respect that a European aristocrat would achieve. Isabel's mind does not seem quite capable of formulating the concrete idea of marriage, and instead her desire for love seems to be frightening to her, a very vague idea that she does not want to assume concrete form, since it might threaten her notion of independence. Either way, it is a difficult task to be "successful" in Europe, because Americans were seen as coming from a less-respected culture and a lack of tradition. Ralph's observation that Isabel has good taste in painting foreshadows that Isabel will find herself interested in European aesthetics, a conventional aspect of European culture, even while she contradictorily critiques "conventionality" in a general sense.

analysis

The two amused themselves, time and again, with talking of the attitude of the British public as if the young lady had been in a position to appeal to it; but in fact the British public remained for the present profoundly indifferent to Miss Isabel Archer, whose fortune had dropped her, as her cousin said, into the dullest house in England. Her gouty uncle received very little company, and Mrs. Touchett, not having cultivated relations with her husband's neighbours, was not warranted in expecting visits from them. She had, however, a peculiar taste; she liked to receive cards. For what is usually called social intercourse she had very little relish; but nothing pleased her more than to find her hall-table whitened with oblong morsels of symbolic pasteboard. She flattered herself that she was a very just woman, and had mastered the sovereign truth that nothing in this world is got for nothing. She had played no social part as mistress of Gardencourt, and it was not to be supposed that, in the surrounding country, a minute account should be kept of her comings and goings. But it is by no means certain that she did not feel it to be wrong that so little notice was taken of them and that her failure (really very gratuitous) to make herself important in the neighbourhood had not much to do with the acrimony of her allusions to her husband's adopted country. Isabel presently found herself in the singular situation of defending the British constitution against her aunt; Mrs. Touchett having formed the habit of sticking pins into this venerable instrument. Isabel always felt an impulse to pull out the pins; not that she imagined they inflicted any damage on the tough old parchment, but because it seemed to her her aunt might make better use of her sharpness. She was very critical herself--it was incidental to her age, her sex and her nationality; but she was very sentimental as well, and there was something in Mrs. Touchett's dryness that set her own moral fountains flowing. "Now what's your point of view?" she asked of her aunt. "When you criticise everything here you should have a point of view. Yours doesn't seem to be American--you thought everything over there so disagreeable. When I criticise I have mine; it's thoroughly American!" "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!" Isabel thought this a better answer than she admitted; it was a tolerable description of her own manner of judging, but it would not have sounded well for her to say so. On the lips of a person less advanced in life and less enlightened by experience than Mrs. Touchett such a declaration would savour of immodesty, even of arrogance. She risked it nevertheless in talking with Ralph, with whom she talked a great deal and with whom her conversation was of a sort that gave a large licence to extravagance. Her cousin used, as the phrase is, to chaff her; he very soon established with her a reputation for treating everything as a joke, and he was not a man to neglect the privileges such a reputation conferred. She accused him of an odious want of seriousness, of laughing at all things, beginning with himself. Such slender faculty of reverence as he possessed centred wholly upon his father; for the rest, he exercised his wit indifferently upon his father's son, this gentleman's weak lungs, his useless life, his fantastic mother, his friends (Lord Warburton in especial), his adopted, and his native country, his charming new-found cousin. "I keep a band of music in my ante-room," 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 ear-shot of Ralph's band; the liveliest waltzes seemed to float upon the air. Isabel often found herself irritated by this perpetual fiddling; she would have liked to pass through the ante-room, as her cousin called it, and enter the private apartments. It mattered little that he had assured her they were a very dismal place; she would have been glad to undertake to sweep them and set them in order. It was but half-hospitality to let her remain outside; to punish him for which Isabel administered innumerable taps with the ferule of her straight young wit. It must be said that her wit was exercised to a large extent in self-defence, for her cousin amused himself with calling her "Columbia" and accusing her of a patriotism so heated that it scorched. 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 would be as American as it pleased him to regard her, and if he chose to laugh at her she would give him plenty of occupation. She defended England against his mother, but when Ralph sang its praises on purpose, as she said, to work her up, she found herself able to differ from him on a variety of points. In fact, the quality of this small ripe country seemed as sweet to her as the taste of an October pear; and her satisfaction was at the root of the good spirits which enabled her to take her cousin's chaff and return it in kind. If her good-humour flagged at moments it was not because she thought herself ill-used, but because she suddenly felt sorry for Ralph. It seemed to her he was talking as a blind and had little heart in what he said. "I don't know what's the matter with you," she observed to him once; "but I suspect you're a great humbug." "That's your privilege," Ralph answered, who had not been used to being so crudely addressed. "I don't know what you care for; I don't think you care for anything. You don't really care for England when you praise it; you don't care for America even when you pretend to abuse it." "I care for nothing but you, dear cousin," said Ralph. "If I could believe even that, I should be very glad." "Ah well, I should hope so!" the young man exclaimed. Isabel might have believed it and not have been far from the truth. He thought a great deal about her; she was constantly present to his mind. At a time when his thoughts had been a good deal of a burden to him her sudden arrival, which promised nothing and was an open-handed gift of fate, had refreshed and quickened them, given them wings and something to fly for. Poor Ralph had been for many weeks steeped in melancholy; his outlook, habitually sombre, lay under the shadow of a deeper cloud. He had grown anxious about his father, whose gout, hitherto confined to his legs, had begun to ascend into regions more vital. The old man had been gravely ill in the spring, and the doctors had whispered to Ralph that another attack would be less easy to deal with. Just now he appeared disburdened of pain, but Ralph could not rid himself of a suspicion that this was a subterfuge of the enemy, who was waiting to take him off his guard. If the manoeuvre should succeed there would be little hope of any great resistance. Ralph had always taken for granted that his father would survive him--that his own name would be the first grimly called. The father and son had been close companions, and the idea of being left alone with the remnant of a tasteless life on his hands was not gratifying to the young man, who had always and tacitly counted upon his elder's help in making the best of a poor business. At the prospect of losing his great motive Ralph lost indeed his one inspiration. If they might die at the same time it would be all very well; but without the encouragement of his father's society he should barely have patience to await his own turn. He had not the incentive of feeling that he was indispensable to his mother; it was a rule with his mother to have no regrets. He bethought himself of course that it had been a small kindness to his father to wish that, of the two, the active rather than the passive party should know the felt wound; he remembered that the old man had always treated his own forecast of an early end as a clever fallacy, which he should be delighted to discredit so far as he might by dying first. But of the two triumphs, that of refuting a sophistical son and that of holding on a while longer to a state of being which, with all abatements, he enjoyed, Ralph deemed it no sin to hope the latter might be vouchsafed to Mr. Touchett. These were nice questions, but Isabel's arrival put a stop to his puzzling over them. It even suggested there might be a compensation for the intolerable ennui of surviving his genial sire. He wondered whether he were harbouring "love" for this spontaneous young woman from Albany; but he judged that on the whole he was not. After he had known her for a week he quite made up his mind to this, and every day he felt a little more sure. Lord Warburton had been right about her; she was a really interesting little figure. Ralph wondered how their neighbour had found it out so soon; and then he said it was only another proof of his friend's high abilities, which he had always greatly admired. If his cousin were to be nothing more than an entertainment to him, Ralph was conscious she was an entertainment of a high order. "A character like that," he said to himself--"a real little passionate force to see at play is the finest thing in nature. It's finer than the finest work of art--than a Greek bas-relief, than a great Titian, than a Gothic cathedral. It's very pleasant to be so well treated where one had least looked for it. I had never been more blue, more bored, than for a week before she came; I had never expected less that anything pleasant would happen. Suddenly I receive a Titian, by the post, to hang on my wall--a Greek bas-relief to stick over my chimney-piece. The key of a beautiful edifice is thrust into my hand, and I'm told to walk in and admire. My poor boy, you've been sadly ungrateful, and now you had better keep very quiet and never grumble again." The sentiment of these reflexions was very just; but it was not exactly true that Ralph Touchett had had a key put into his hand. His cousin was a very brilliant girl, who would take, as he said, a good deal of knowing; but she needed the knowing, and his attitude with regard to her, though it was contemplative and critical, was not judicial. He surveyed the edifice from the outside and admired it greatly; he looked in at the windows and received an impression of proportions equally fair. But he felt that he saw it only by glimpses and that he had not yet stood under the roof. The door was fastened, and though he had keys in his pocket he had a conviction that none of them would fit. 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!" It devolved upon him of course to do the honours of the place. Mr. Touchett was confined to his chair, and his wife's position was that of rather a grim visitor; so that in the line of conduct that opened itself to Ralph duty and inclination were harmoniously mixed. He was not a great walker, but he strolled about the grounds with his cousin--a pastime for which the weather remained favourable with a persistency not allowed for in Isabel's somewhat lugubrious prevision of the climate; and in the long afternoons, of which the length was but the measure of her gratified eagerness, they took a boat on the river, the dear little river, as Isabel called it, where the opposite shore seemed still a part of the foreground of the landscape; or drove over the country in a phaeton--a low, capacious, thick-wheeled phaeton formerly much used by Mr. Touchett, but which he had now ceased to enjoy. Isabel enjoyed it largely and, handling the reins in a manner which approved itself to the groom as "knowing," was never weary of driving her uncle's capital horses through winding lanes and byways full of the rural incidents she had confidently expected to find; past cottages thatched and timbered, past ale-houses latticed and sanded, past patches of ancient common and glimpses of empty parks, between hedgerows made thick by midsummer. When they reached home they usually found tea had been served on the lawn and that Mrs. Touchett had not shrunk from the extremity of handing her husband his cup. But the two for the most part sat silent; the old man with his head back and his eyes closed, his wife occupied with her knitting and wearing that appearance of rare profundity with which some ladies consider the movement of their needles. One day, however, a visitor had arrived. The two young persons, after spending an hour on the river, strolled back to the house and perceived Lord Warburton sitting under the trees and engaged in conversation, of which even at a distance the desultory character was appreciable, with Mrs. Touchett. He had driven over from his own place with a portmanteau and had asked, as the father and son often invited him to do, for a dinner and a lodging. Isabel, seeing him for half an hour on the day of her arrival, had discovered in this brief space that she liked him; he had indeed rather sharply registered himself on her fine sense and she had thought of him several times. She had hoped she should see him again--hoped too that she should see a few others. Gardencourt was not dull; the place itself was sovereign, her uncle was more and more a sort of golden grandfather, and Ralph was unlike any cousin she had ever encountered--her idea of cousins having tended to gloom. Then her impressions were still so fresh and so quickly renewed that there was as yet hardly a hint of vacancy in the view. But Isabel had need to remind herself that she was interested in human nature and that her foremost hope in coming abroad had been that she should see a great many people. When Ralph said to her, as he had done several times, "I wonder you find this endurable; you ought to see some of the neighbours and some of our friends, because we have really got a few, though you would never suppose it"--when he offered to invite what he called a "lot of people" and make her acquainted with English society, she encouraged the hospitable impulse and promised in advance to hurl herself into the fray. Little, however, for the present, had come of his offers, and it may be confided to the reader that if the young man delayed to carry them out it was because he found the labour of providing for his companion by no means so severe as to require extraneous help. Isabel had spoken to him very often about "specimens;" it was a word that played a considerable part in her vocabulary; she had given him to understand that she wished to see English society illustrated by eminent cases. "Well now, there's a specimen," he said to her as they walked up from the riverside and he recognised Lord Warburton. "A specimen of what?" asked the girl. "A specimen of an English gentleman." "Do you mean they're all like him?" "Oh no; they're not all like him." "He's a favourable specimen then," said Isabel; "because I'm sure he's nice." "Yes, he's very nice. And he's very fortunate." The fortunate Lord Warburton exchanged a handshake with our heroine and hoped she was very well. "But I needn't ask that," he said, "since you've been handling the oars." "I've been rowing a little," Isabel answered; "but how should you know it?" "Oh, I know he doesn't row; he's too lazy," said his lordship, indicating Ralph Touchett with a laugh. "He has a good excuse for his laziness," Isabel rejoined, lowering her voice a little. "Ah, he has a good excuse for everything!" cried Lord Warburton, still with his sonorous mirth. "My excuse for not rowing is that my cousin rows so well," said Ralph. "She does everything well. She touches nothing that she doesn't adorn!" "It makes one want to be touched, Miss Archer," Lord Warburton declared. "Be touched in the right sense and you'll never look the worse for it," said Isabel, who, if it pleased her to hear it said that her accomplishments were numerous, was happily able to reflect that such complacency was not the indication of a feeble mind, inasmuch as there were several things in which she excelled. Her desire to think well of herself had at least the element of humility that it always needed to be supported by proof. Lord Warburton not only spent the night at Gardencourt, but he was persuaded to remain over the second day; and when the second day was ended he determined to postpone his departure till the morrow. During this period he addressed many of his remarks to Isabel, who accepted this evidence of his esteem with a very good grace. She found herself liking him extremely; the first impression he had made on her had had weight, but at the end of an evening spent in his society she scarce fell short of seeing him--though quite without luridity--as a hero of romance. She retired to rest with a sense of good fortune, with a quickened consciousness of possible felicities. "It's very nice to know two such charming people as those," she said, meaning by "those" her cousin and her cousin's friend. It must be added moreover that an incident had occurred which might have seemed to put her good-humour to the test. Mr. Touchett went to bed at half-past nine o'clock, but his wife remained in the drawing-room with the other members of the party. She prolonged her vigil for something less than an hour, and then, rising, observed to Isabel that it was time they should bid the gentlemen good-night. Isabel had as yet no desire to go to bed; the occasion wore, to her sense, a festive character, and feasts were not in the habit of terminating so early. So, without further thought, she replied, very simply-- "Need I go, dear aunt? I'll come up in half an hour." "It's impossible I should wait for you," Mrs. Touchett answered. "Ah, you needn't wait! Ralph will light my candle," Isabel gaily engaged. "I'll light your candle; do let me light your candle, Miss Archer!" Lord Warburton exclaimed. "Only I beg it shall not be before midnight." Mrs. Touchett fixed her bright little eyes upon him a moment and transferred them coldly to her niece. "You can't stay alone with the gentlemen. You're not--you're not at your blest Albany, my dear." Isabel rose, blushing. "I wish I were," she said. "Oh, I say, mother!" Ralph broke out. "My dear Mrs. Touchett!" Lord Warburton murmured. "I didn't make your country, my lord," Mrs. Touchett said majestically. "I must take it as I find it." "Can't I stay with my own cousin?" Isabel enquired. "I'm not aware that Lord Warburton is your cousin." "Perhaps I had better go to bed!" the visitor suggested. "That will arrange it." Mrs. Touchett gave a little look of despair and sat down again. "Oh, if it's necessary I'll stay up till midnight." Ralph meanwhile handed Isabel her candlestick. He had been watching her; it had seemed to him her temper was involved--an accident that might be interesting. But if he had expected anything of a flare he was disappointed, for the girl simply laughed a little, nodded good-night and withdrew accompanied by her aunt. For himself he was annoyed at his mother, though he thought she was right. Above-stairs the two ladies separated at Mrs. Touchett's door. Isabel had said nothing on her way up. "Of course you're vexed at my interfering with you," said Mrs. Touchett. Isabel considered. "I'm not vexed, but I'm surprised--and a good deal mystified. Wasn't it proper I should remain in the drawing-room?" "Not in the least. Young girls here--in decent houses--don't sit alone with the gentlemen late at night." "You were very right to tell me then," said Isabel. "I don't understand it, but I'm very glad to know it. "I shall always tell you," her aunt answered, "whenever I see you taking what seems to me too much liberty." "Pray do; but I don't say I shall always think your remonstrance just." "Very likely not. You're too fond of your own ways." "Yes, I think I'm very fond of them. But I always want to know the things one shouldn't do." "So as to do them?" asked her aunt. "So as to choose," said Isabel.

Isabel and the Touchetts take to often talking about British politics and the British public. The house itself receives very few visitors, and so all these discussions are really more theoretical than based off of Isabel's own observations. Isabel finds herself often disagreeing with Mrs. Touchett on the subject of the British constitution purely because she is more sentimental than Mrs. Touchett. Isabel claims to have an "American" view, and Mrs. Touchett tells her that is a shockingly narrow idea. My point of view, thank God, is personal. Mrs. Touchett declares. Meanwhile, Isabel develops a closer relationship to Ralph, who she accuses of never treating anything seriously. He jokingly likes to paint her as representative of America, and although she fears being seen as narrow-minded, she plays along, pretending to yearn for America. Isabel feels a bit sorry for Ralph sometimes, and she even accuses him of being a "humbug" who does not care for anything. Ralph jokes that he cares for nothing but her. The narrator comments that in fact this is not so far from the truth, as Ralph thinks about her often. Before her arrival, he had often many heavy thoughts about his ill father that burdened him. Ralph felt that life would be tasteless without his father, and he had always thought his father would outlive him. With Isabel's presence, he is less preoccupied with such dark thoughts. He decides that he is not in love with her, but that she is like the "finest work of art". The question though that constantly arises in his mind though is: "What was she going to do with herself. He decides that he wants to see for himself, whatever it may be. One day, Lord Warburton comes to visit at Gardencourt. Isabel finds that she likes him very much, and almost begins to think of him as a "hero of romance". One night, Mrs. Touchett, Ralph, Lord Warburton and Isabel are sitting in the drawing room after dinner. Mrs. Touchett stands up to go to bed and tells Isabel that she ought to bid the gentlemen good night. Isabel, without thinking, tells her aunt she would like to stay another half hour. Mrs. Touchett gives her a cold stare, reminding her that she is not in Albany. Isabel retorts, blushing, "I wish I were". Mrs. Touchett decides to simply stay up until Isabel wishes to go to bed. Afterwards, Mrs. Touchett tells her it was not proper to stay in the drawing room, and Isabel tells her she does not understand it, but is glad to know it. I always want to know the things one shouldn't do," Isabel says. The aunt asks, "So as to do them. Isabel responds, "So as to choose"

summary

The two amused themselves, time and again, with talking of the attitude of the British public as if the young lady had been in a position to appeal to it; but in fact the British public remained for the present profoundly indifferent to Miss Isabel Archer, whose fortune had dropped her, as her cousin said, into the dullest house in England. Her gouty uncle received very little company, and Mrs. Touchett, not having cultivated relations with her husband's neighbours, was not warranted in expecting visits from them. She had, however, a peculiar taste; she liked to receive cards. For what is usually called social intercourse she had very little relish; but nothing pleased her more than to find her hall-table whitened with oblong morsels of symbolic pasteboard. She flattered herself that she was a very just woman, and had mastered the sovereign truth that nothing in this world is got for nothing. She had played no social part as mistress of Gardencourt, and it was not to be supposed that, in the surrounding country, a minute account should be kept of her comings and goings. But it is by no means certain that she did not feel it to be wrong that so little notice was taken of them and that her failure (really very gratuitous) to make herself important in the neighbourhood had not much to do with the acrimony of her allusions to her husband's adopted country. Isabel presently found herself in the singular situation of defending the British constitution against her aunt; Mrs. Touchett having formed the habit of sticking pins into this venerable instrument. Isabel always felt an impulse to pull out the pins; not that she imagined they inflicted any damage on the tough old parchment, but because it seemed to her her aunt might make better use of her sharpness. She was very critical herself--it was incidental to her age, her sex and her nationality; but she was very sentimental as well, and there was something in Mrs. Touchett's dryness that set her own moral fountains flowing. "Now what's your point of view?" she asked of her aunt. "When you criticise everything here you should have a point of view. Yours doesn't seem to be American--you thought everything over there so disagreeable. When I criticise I have mine; it's thoroughly American!" "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!" Isabel thought this a better answer than she admitted; it was a tolerable description of her own manner of judging, but it would not have sounded well for her to say so. On the lips of a person less advanced in life and less enlightened by experience than Mrs. Touchett such a declaration would savour of immodesty, even of arrogance. She risked it nevertheless in talking with Ralph, with whom she talked a great deal and with whom her conversation was of a sort that gave a large licence to extravagance. Her cousin used, as the phrase is, to chaff her; he very soon established with her a reputation for treating everything as a joke, and he was not a man to neglect the privileges such a reputation conferred. She accused him of an odious want of seriousness, of laughing at all things, beginning with himself. Such slender faculty of reverence as he possessed centred wholly upon his father; for the rest, he exercised his wit indifferently upon his father's son, this gentleman's weak lungs, his useless life, his fantastic mother, his friends (Lord Warburton in especial), his adopted, and his native country, his charming new-found cousin. "I keep a band of music in my ante-room," 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 ear-shot of Ralph's band; the liveliest waltzes seemed to float upon the air. Isabel often found herself irritated by this perpetual fiddling; she would have liked to pass through the ante-room, as her cousin called it, and enter the private apartments. It mattered little that he had assured her they were a very dismal place; she would have been glad to undertake to sweep them and set them in order. It was but half-hospitality to let her remain outside; to punish him for which Isabel administered innumerable taps with the ferule of her straight young wit. It must be said that her wit was exercised to a large extent in self-defence, for her cousin amused himself with calling her "Columbia" and accusing her of a patriotism so heated that it scorched. 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 would be as American as it pleased him to regard her, and if he chose to laugh at her she would give him plenty of occupation. She defended England against his mother, but when Ralph sang its praises on purpose, as she said, to work her up, she found herself able to differ from him on a variety of points. In fact, the quality of this small ripe country seemed as sweet to her as the taste of an October pear; and her satisfaction was at the root of the good spirits which enabled her to take her cousin's chaff and return it in kind. If her good-humour flagged at moments it was not because she thought herself ill-used, but because she suddenly felt sorry for Ralph. It seemed to her he was talking as a blind and had little heart in what he said. "I don't know what's the matter with you," she observed to him once; "but I suspect you're a great humbug." "That's your privilege," Ralph answered, who had not been used to being so crudely addressed. "I don't know what you care for; I don't think you care for anything. You don't really care for England when you praise it; you don't care for America even when you pretend to abuse it." "I care for nothing but you, dear cousin," said Ralph. "If I could believe even that, I should be very glad." "Ah well, I should hope so!" the young man exclaimed. Isabel might have believed it and not have been far from the truth. He thought a great deal about her; she was constantly present to his mind. At a time when his thoughts had been a good deal of a burden to him her sudden arrival, which promised nothing and was an open-handed gift of fate, had refreshed and quickened them, given them wings and something to fly for. Poor Ralph had been for many weeks steeped in melancholy; his outlook, habitually sombre, lay under the shadow of a deeper cloud. He had grown anxious about his father, whose gout, hitherto confined to his legs, had begun to ascend into regions more vital. The old man had been gravely ill in the spring, and the doctors had whispered to Ralph that another attack would be less easy to deal with. Just now he appeared disburdened of pain, but Ralph could not rid himself of a suspicion that this was a subterfuge of the enemy, who was waiting to take him off his guard. If the manoeuvre should succeed there would be little hope of any great resistance. Ralph had always taken for granted that his father would survive him--that his own name would be the first grimly called. The father and son had been close companions, and the idea of being left alone with the remnant of a tasteless life on his hands was not gratifying to the young man, who had always and tacitly counted upon his elder's help in making the best of a poor business. At the prospect of losing his great motive Ralph lost indeed his one inspiration. If they might die at the same time it would be all very well; but without the encouragement of his father's society he should barely have patience to await his own turn. He had not the incentive of feeling that he was indispensable to his mother; it was a rule with his mother to have no regrets. He bethought himself of course that it had been a small kindness to his father to wish that, of the two, the active rather than the passive party should know the felt wound; he remembered that the old man had always treated his own forecast of an early end as a clever fallacy, which he should be delighted to discredit so far as he might by dying first. But of the two triumphs, that of refuting a sophistical son and that of holding on a while longer to a state of being which, with all abatements, he enjoyed, Ralph deemed it no sin to hope the latter might be vouchsafed to Mr. Touchett. These were nice questions, but Isabel's arrival put a stop to his puzzling over them. It even suggested there might be a compensation for the intolerable ennui of surviving his genial sire. He wondered whether he were harbouring "love" for this spontaneous young woman from Albany; but he judged that on the whole he was not. After he had known her for a week he quite made up his mind to this, and every day he felt a little more sure. Lord Warburton had been right about her; she was a really interesting little figure. Ralph wondered how their neighbour had found it out so soon; and then he said it was only another proof of his friend's high abilities, which he had always greatly admired. If his cousin were to be nothing more than an entertainment to him, Ralph was conscious she was an entertainment of a high order. "A character like that," he said to himself--"a real little passionate force to see at play is the finest thing in nature. It's finer than the finest work of art--than a Greek bas-relief, than a great Titian, than a Gothic cathedral. It's very pleasant to be so well treated where one had least looked for it. I had never been more blue, more bored, than for a week before she came; I had never expected less that anything pleasant would happen. Suddenly I receive a Titian, by the post, to hang on my wall--a Greek bas-relief to stick over my chimney-piece. The key of a beautiful edifice is thrust into my hand, and I'm told to walk in and admire. My poor boy, you've been sadly ungrateful, and now you had better keep very quiet and never grumble again." The sentiment of these reflexions was very just; but it was not exactly true that Ralph Touchett had had a key put into his hand. His cousin was a very brilliant girl, who would take, as he said, a good deal of knowing; but she needed the knowing, and his attitude with regard to her, though it was contemplative and critical, was not judicial. He surveyed the edifice from the outside and admired it greatly; he looked in at the windows and received an impression of proportions equally fair. But he felt that he saw it only by glimpses and that he had not yet stood under the roof. The door was fastened, and though he had keys in his pocket he had a conviction that none of them would fit. 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!" It devolved upon him of course to do the honours of the place. Mr. Touchett was confined to his chair, and his wife's position was that of rather a grim visitor; so that in the line of conduct that opened itself to Ralph duty and inclination were harmoniously mixed. He was not a great walker, but he strolled about the grounds with his cousin--a pastime for which the weather remained favourable with a persistency not allowed for in Isabel's somewhat lugubrious prevision of the climate; and in the long afternoons, of which the length was but the measure of her gratified eagerness, they took a boat on the river, the dear little river, as Isabel called it, where the opposite shore seemed still a part of the foreground of the landscape; or drove over the country in a phaeton--a low, capacious, thick-wheeled phaeton formerly much used by Mr. Touchett, but which he had now ceased to enjoy. Isabel enjoyed it largely and, handling the reins in a manner which approved itself to the groom as "knowing," was never weary of driving her uncle's capital horses through winding lanes and byways full of the rural incidents she had confidently expected to find; past cottages thatched and timbered, past ale-houses latticed and sanded, past patches of ancient common and glimpses of empty parks, between hedgerows made thick by midsummer. When they reached home they usually found tea had been served on the lawn and that Mrs. Touchett had not shrunk from the extremity of handing her husband his cup. But the two for the most part sat silent; the old man with his head back and his eyes closed, his wife occupied with her knitting and wearing that appearance of rare profundity with which some ladies consider the movement of their needles. One day, however, a visitor had arrived. The two young persons, after spending an hour on the river, strolled back to the house and perceived Lord Warburton sitting under the trees and engaged in conversation, of which even at a distance the desultory character was appreciable, with Mrs. Touchett. He had driven over from his own place with a portmanteau and had asked, as the father and son often invited him to do, for a dinner and a lodging. Isabel, seeing him for half an hour on the day of her arrival, had discovered in this brief space that she liked him; he had indeed rather sharply registered himself on her fine sense and she had thought of him several times. She had hoped she should see him again--hoped too that she should see a few others. Gardencourt was not dull; the place itself was sovereign, her uncle was more and more a sort of golden grandfather, and Ralph was unlike any cousin she had ever encountered--her idea of cousins having tended to gloom. Then her impressions were still so fresh and so quickly renewed that there was as yet hardly a hint of vacancy in the view. But Isabel had need to remind herself that she was interested in human nature and that her foremost hope in coming abroad had been that she should see a great many people. When Ralph said to her, as he had done several times, "I wonder you find this endurable; you ought to see some of the neighbours and some of our friends, because we have really got a few, though you would never suppose it"--when he offered to invite what he called a "lot of people" and make her acquainted with English society, she encouraged the hospitable impulse and promised in advance to hurl herself into the fray. Little, however, for the present, had come of his offers, and it may be confided to the reader that if the young man delayed to carry them out it was because he found the labour of providing for his companion by no means so severe as to require extraneous help. Isabel had spoken to him very often about "specimens;" it was a word that played a considerable part in her vocabulary; she had given him to understand that she wished to see English society illustrated by eminent cases. "Well now, there's a specimen," he said to her as they walked up from the riverside and he recognised Lord Warburton. "A specimen of what?" asked the girl. "A specimen of an English gentleman." "Do you mean they're all like him?" "Oh no; they're not all like him." "He's a favourable specimen then," said Isabel; "because I'm sure he's nice." "Yes, he's very nice. And he's very fortunate." The fortunate Lord Warburton exchanged a handshake with our heroine and hoped she was very well. "But I needn't ask that," he said, "since you've been handling the oars." "I've been rowing a little," Isabel answered; "but how should you know it?" "Oh, I know he doesn't row; he's too lazy," said his lordship, indicating Ralph Touchett with a laugh. "He has a good excuse for his laziness," Isabel rejoined, lowering her voice a little. "Ah, he has a good excuse for everything!" cried Lord Warburton, still with his sonorous mirth. "My excuse for not rowing is that my cousin rows so well," said Ralph. "She does everything well. She touches nothing that she doesn't adorn!" "It makes one want to be touched, Miss Archer," Lord Warburton declared. "Be touched in the right sense and you'll never look the worse for it," said Isabel, who, if it pleased her to hear it said that her accomplishments were numerous, was happily able to reflect that such complacency was not the indication of a feeble mind, inasmuch as there were several things in which she excelled. Her desire to think well of herself had at least the element of humility that it always needed to be supported by proof. Lord Warburton not only spent the night at Gardencourt, but he was persuaded to remain over the second day; and when the second day was ended he determined to postpone his departure till the morrow. During this period he addressed many of his remarks to Isabel, who accepted this evidence of his esteem with a very good grace. She found herself liking him extremely; the first impression he had made on her had had weight, but at the end of an evening spent in his society she scarce fell short of seeing him--though quite without luridity--as a hero of romance. She retired to rest with a sense of good fortune, with a quickened consciousness of possible felicities. "It's very nice to know two such charming people as those," she said, meaning by "those" her cousin and her cousin's friend. It must be added moreover that an incident had occurred which might have seemed to put her good-humour to the test. Mr. Touchett went to bed at half-past nine o'clock, but his wife remained in the drawing-room with the other members of the party. She prolonged her vigil for something less than an hour, and then, rising, observed to Isabel that it was time they should bid the gentlemen good-night. Isabel had as yet no desire to go to bed; the occasion wore, to her sense, a festive character, and feasts were not in the habit of terminating so early. So, without further thought, she replied, very simply-- "Need I go, dear aunt? I'll come up in half an hour." "It's impossible I should wait for you," Mrs. Touchett answered. "Ah, you needn't wait! Ralph will light my candle," Isabel gaily engaged. "I'll light your candle; do let me light your candle, Miss Archer!" Lord Warburton exclaimed. "Only I beg it shall not be before midnight." Mrs. Touchett fixed her bright little eyes upon him a moment and transferred them coldly to her niece. "You can't stay alone with the gentlemen. You're not--you're not at your blest Albany, my dear." Isabel rose, blushing. "I wish I were," she said. "Oh, I say, mother!" Ralph broke out. "My dear Mrs. Touchett!" Lord Warburton murmured. "I didn't make your country, my lord," Mrs. Touchett said majestically. "I must take it as I find it." "Can't I stay with my own cousin?" Isabel enquired. "I'm not aware that Lord Warburton is your cousin." "Perhaps I had better go to bed!" the visitor suggested. "That will arrange it." Mrs. Touchett gave a little look of despair and sat down again. "Oh, if it's necessary I'll stay up till midnight." Ralph meanwhile handed Isabel her candlestick. He had been watching her; it had seemed to him her temper was involved--an accident that might be interesting. But if he had expected anything of a flare he was disappointed, for the girl simply laughed a little, nodded good-night and withdrew accompanied by her aunt. For himself he was annoyed at his mother, though he thought she was right. Above-stairs the two ladies separated at Mrs. Touchett's door. Isabel had said nothing on her way up. "Of course you're vexed at my interfering with you," said Mrs. Touchett. Isabel considered. "I'm not vexed, but I'm surprised--and a good deal mystified. Wasn't it proper I should remain in the drawing-room?" "Not in the least. Young girls here--in decent houses--don't sit alone with the gentlemen late at night." "You were very right to tell me then," said Isabel. "I don't understand it, but I'm very glad to know it. "I shall always tell you," her aunt answered, "whenever I see you taking what seems to me too much liberty." "Pray do; but I don't say I shall always think your remonstrance just." "Very likely not. You're too fond of your own ways." "Yes, I think I'm very fond of them. But I always want to know the things one shouldn't do." "So as to do them?" asked her aunt. "So as to choose," said Isabel.

Isabel is likened to an aesthetic object in Ralph's imagination, described as a "fine work of art." It is interesting to read the parallel between our approach to works of art and to Isabel Archer. One typically assumes a disinterested attitude to a work of art, insofar as one sees something is beautiful without conceiving of a use for that particular work. Similarly, Ralph has no idea what Isabel is good at -- he has no idea what her genius is for. Furthermore, the title of the work is called "the portrait of a lady," which likens Isabel's life to a pictorial painting. In the scene in the drawing room in Chapter 7, we get a first sense of how Isabel treats customs and manners that she does not understand. Mrs. Touchett thinks it is inappropriate for a young girl to stay alone with two unwed men late at night, but Isabel refuses to leave because she thinks the situation is perfectly innocent. When she finds out that such behavior is frowned upon, she is interested because it is a piece of knowledge -- not one that she will necessarily conform to, but rather one that will allow her to understand her options. This foreshadows the quality of her stubbornness: she will not behave as others want her to, but she wants to know how others want her to behave. These others will perceive her behavior though as simply doing the opposite of what they would like her to do. Chapter 8 is an analysis of Lord Warburton as a specimen of the age. He comes from a very privileged background, but he also sides theoretically with radicals rather than conservatives in terms of how the country might change for the causes of more social justice. Of course, this position is more theoretical, because the Touchetts believe Lord Warburton has such a radical opinion only because he lives in such luxury. In other words, thinking about the possibility of social change is a luxury which can contradictorily only be enjoyed from a position of privilege -- a privilege granted from the very institution which one might theoretically want to change. James is being critical of the possibility of society to really change given that the people in power do not benefit from its changing. In Chapter 9, we see Lord Warburton is beginning to fall in love with Isabel. Isabel's reacts both naively and coldly to this prospect: she seems to fear intimacy. This reaction is a reference to an earlier description of Isabel: the narrator has told us that the "deepest" thought in her mind is that she might one day give herself wholly to a man in marriage, a prospect which she finds more "formidable" than attractive . The reader then begins to ask himself/herself: why is Isabel afraid of this prospect? Does she fear personal intimacy? Does she fear sexual intimacy? Does she think that she will lose her own independence?

analysis

As she was devoted to romantic effects Lord Warburton ventured to express a hope that she would come some day and see his house, a very curious old place. He extracted from Mrs. Touchett a promise that she would bring her niece to Lockleigh, and Ralph signified his willingness to attend the ladies if his father should be able to spare him. Lord Warburton assured our heroine that in the mean time his sisters would come and see her. She knew something about his sisters, having sounded him, during the hours they spent together while he was at Gardencourt, on many points connected with his family. When Isabel was interested she asked a great many questions, and as her companion was a copious talker she urged him on this occasion by no means in vain. He told her he had four sisters and two brothers and had lost both his parents. The brothers and sisters were very good people--"not particularly clever, you know," he said, "but very decent and pleasant;" and he was so good as to hope Miss Archer might know them well. One of the brothers was in the Church, settled in the family living, that of Lockleigh, which was a heavy, sprawling parish, and was an excellent fellow in spite of his thinking differently from himself on every conceivable topic. And then Lord Warburton mentioned some of the opinions held by his brother, which were opinions Isabel had often heard expressed and that she supposed to be entertained by a considerable portion of the human family. Many of them indeed she supposed she had held herself, till he assured her she was quite mistaken, that it was really impossible, that she had doubtless imagined she entertained them, but that she might depend that, if she thought them over a little, she would find there was nothing in them. When she answered that she had already thought several of the questions involved over very attentively he declared that she was only another example of what he had often been struck with--the fact that, of all the people in the world, the Americans were the most grossly superstitious. They were rank Tories and bigots, every one of them; there were no conservatives like American conservatives. Her uncle and her cousin were there to prove it; nothing could be more medieval than many of their views; they had ideas that people in England nowadays were ashamed to confess to; and they had the impudence moreover, said his lordship, laughing, to pretend they knew more about the needs and dangers of this poor dear stupid old England than he who was born in it and owned a considerable slice of it--the more shame to him! From all of which Isabel gathered that Lord Warburton was a nobleman of the newest pattern, a reformer, a radical, a contemner of ancient ways. His other brother, who was in the army in India, was rather wild and pig-headed and had not been of much use as yet but to make debts for Warburton to pay--one of the most precious privileges of an elder brother. "I don't think I shall pay any more," said her friend; "he lives a monstrous deal better than I do, enjoys unheard-of luxuries and thinks himself a much finer gentleman than I. As I'm a consistent radical I go in only for equality; I don't go in for the superiority of the younger brothers." Two of his four sisters, the second and fourth, were married, one of them having done very well, as they said, the other only so-so. The husband of the elder, Lord Haycock, was a very good fellow, but unfortunately a horrid Tory; and his wife, like all good English wives, was worse than her husband. The other had espoused a smallish squire in Norfolk and, though married but the other day, had already five children. This information and much more Lord Warburton imparted to his young American listener, taking pains to make many things clear and to lay bare to her apprehension the peculiarities of English life. Isabel was often amused at his explicitness and at the small allowance he seemed to make either for her own experience or for her imagination. "He thinks I'm a barbarian," she said, "and that I've never seen forks and spoons;" and she used to ask him artless questions for the pleasure of hearing him answer seriously. Then when he had fallen into the trap, "It's a pity you can't see me in my war-paint and feathers," she remarked; "if I had known how kind you are to the poor savages I would have brought over my native costume!" Lord Warburton had travelled through the United States and knew much more about them than Isabel; he was so good as to say that America was the most charming country in the world, but his recollections of it appeared to encourage the idea that Americans in England would need to have a great many things explained to them. "If I had only had you to explain things to me in America!" he said. "I was rather puzzled in your country; in fact I was quite bewildered, and the trouble was that the explanations only puzzled me more. You know I think they often gave me the wrong ones on purpose; they're rather clever about that over there. But when I explain you can trust me; about what I tell you there's no mistake." There was no mistake at least about his being very intelligent and cultivated and knowing almost everything in the world. Although he gave the most interesting and thrilling glimpses Isabel felt he never did it to exhibit himself, and though he had had rare chances and had tumbled in, as she put it, for high prizes, he was as far as possible from making a merit of it. He had enjoyed the best things of life, but they had not spoiled his sense of proportion. His quality was a mixture of the effect of rich experience--oh, so easily come by!--with a modesty at times almost boyish; the sweet and wholesome savour of which--it was as agreeable as something tasted--lost nothing from the addition of a tone of responsible kindness. "I like your specimen English gentleman very much," Isabel said to Ralph after Lord Warburton had gone. "I like him too--I love him well," Ralph returned. "But I pity him more." Isabel looked at him askance. "Why, that seems to me his only fault--that one can't pity him a little. He appears to have everything, to know everything, to be everything." "Oh, he's in a bad way!" Ralph insisted. "I suppose you don't mean in health?" "No, as to that he's detestably sound. What I mean is that he's a man with a great position who's playing all sorts of tricks with it. He doesn't take himself seriously." "Does he regard himself as a joke?" "Much worse; he regards himself as an imposition--as an abuse." "Well, perhaps he is," said Isabel. "Perhaps he is--though on the whole I don't think so. But in that case what's more pitiable than a sentient, self-conscious abuse planted by other hands, deeply rooted but aching with a sense of its injustice? For me, in his place, I could be as solemn as a statue of Buddha. He occupies a position that appeals to my imagination. Great responsibilities, great opportunities, great consideration, great wealth, great power, a natural share in the public affairs of a great country. But he's all in a muddle about himself, his position, his power, and indeed about everything in the world. He's the victim of a critical age; he has ceased to believe in himself and he doesn't know what to believe in. When I attempt to tell him (because if I were he I know very well what I should believe in) he calls me a pampered bigot. I believe he seriously thinks me an awful Philistine; he says I don't understand my time. I understand it certainly better than he, who can neither abolish himself as a nuisance nor maintain himself as an institution." "He doesn't look very wretched," Isabel observed. "Possibly not; though, being a man of a good deal of charming taste, I think he often has uncomfortable hours. But what is it to say of a being of his opportunities that he's not miserable? Besides, I believe he is." "I don't," said Isabel. "Well," her cousin rejoined, "if he isn't he ought to be!" In the afternoon she spent an hour with her uncle on the lawn, where the old man sat, as usual, with his shawl over his legs and his large cup of diluted tea in his hands. In the course of conversation he asked her what she thought of their late visitor. Isabel was prompt. "I think he's charming." "He's a nice person," said Mr. Touchett, "but I don't recommend you to fall in love with him." "I shall not do it then; I shall never fall in love but on your recommendation. Moreover," Isabel added, "my cousin gives me rather a sad account of Lord Warburton." "Oh, indeed? I don't know what there may be to say, but you must remember that Ralph must talk." "He thinks your friend's too subversive--or not subversive enough! I don't quite understand which," said Isabel. The old man shook his head slowly, smiled and put down his cup. "I don't know which either. He goes very far, but it's quite possible he doesn't go far enough. He seems to want to do away with a good many things, but he seems to want to remain himself. I suppose that's natural, but it's rather inconsistent." "Oh, I hope he'll remain himself," said Isabel. "If he were to be done away with his friends would miss him sadly." "Well," said the old man, "I guess he'll stay and amuse his friends. I should certainly miss him very much here at Gardencourt. He always amuses me when he comes over, and I think he amuses himself as well. There's a considerable number like him, round in society; they're very fashionable just now. I don't know what they're trying to do--whether they're trying to get up a revolution. I hope at any rate they'll put it off till after I'm gone. You see they want to disestablish everything; but I'm a pretty big landowner here, and I don't want to be disestablished. I wouldn't have come over if I had thought they were going to behave like that," Mr. Touchett went on with expanding hilarity. "I came over because I thought England was a safe country. I call it a regular fraud if they are going to introduce any considerable changes; there'll be a large number disappointed in that case." "Oh, I do hope they'll make a revolution!" Isabel exclaimed. "I should delight in seeing a revolution." "Let me see," said her uncle, with a humorous intention; "I forget whether you're on the side of the old or on the side of the new. I've heard you take such opposite views." "I'm on the side of both. I guess I'm a little on the side of everything. In a revolution--after it was well begun--I think I should be a high, proud loyalist. One sympathises more with them, and they've a chance to behave so exquisitely. I mean so picturesquely." "I don't know that I understand what you mean by behaving picturesquely, but it seems to me that you do that always, my dear." "Oh, you lovely man, if I could believe that!" the girl interrupted. "I'm afraid, after all, you won't have the pleasure of going gracefully to the guillotine here just now," Mr. Touchett went on. "If you want to see a big outbreak you must pay us a long visit. You see, when you come to the point it wouldn't suit them to be taken at their word." "Of whom are you speaking?" "Well, I mean Lord Warburton and his friends--the radicals of the upper class. Of course I only know the way it strikes me. They talk about the changes, but I don't think they quite realise. You and I, you know, we know what it is to have lived under democratic institutions: I always thought them very comfortable, but I was used to them from the first. And then I ain't a lord; you're a lady, my dear, but I ain't a lord. Now over here I don't think it quite comes home to them. It's a matter of every day and every hour, and I don't think many of them would find it as pleasant as what they've got. Of course if they want to try, it's their own business; but I expect they won't try very hard." "Don't you think they're sincere?" Isabel asked. "Well, they want to FEEL earnest," Mr. Touchett allowed; "but it seems as if they took it out in theories mostly. Their radical views are a kind of amusement; they've got to have some amusement, and they might have coarser tastes than that. You see they're very luxurious, and these progressive ideas are about their biggest luxury. They make them feel moral and yet don't damage their position. They think a great deal of their position; don't let one of them ever persuade you he doesn't, for if you were to proceed on that basis you'd be pulled up very short." Isabel followed her uncle's argument, which he unfolded with his quaint distinctness, most attentively, and though she was unacquainted with the British aristocracy she found it in harmony with her general impressions of human nature. But she felt moved to put in a protest on Lord Warburton's behalf. "I don't believe Lord Warburton's a humbug; I don't care what the others are. I should like to see Lord Warburton put to the test." "Heaven deliver me from my friends!" Mr. Touchett answered. "Lord Warburton's a very amiable young man--a very fine young man. He has a hundred thousand a year. He owns fifty thousand acres of the soil of this little island and ever so many other things besides. He has half a dozen houses to live in. He has a seat in Parliament as I have one at my own dinner-table. He has elegant tastes--cares for literature, for art, for science, for charming young ladies. The most elegant is his taste for the new views. It affords him a great deal of pleasure--more perhaps than anything else, except the young ladies. His old house over there--what does he call it, Lockleigh?--is very attractive; but I don't think it's as pleasant as this. That doesn't matter, however--he has so many others. His views don't hurt any one as far as I can see; they certainly don't hurt himself. And if there were to be a revolution he would come off very easily. They wouldn't touch him, they'd leave him as he is: he's too much liked." "Ah, he couldn't be a martyr even if he wished!" Isabel sighed. "That's a very poor position." "He'll never be a martyr unless you make him one," said the old man. Isabel shook her head; there might have been something laughable in the fact that she did it with a touch of melancholy. "I shall never make any one a martyr." "You'll never be one, I hope." "I hope not. But you don't pity Lord Warburton then as Ralph does?" Her uncle looked at her a while with genial acuteness. "Yes, I do, after all!"

Lord Warburton gets Mrs. Touchett to promise to bring Isabel to his own manor, Lockleigh. Isabel learns about Lord Warburton's family life: he has two brothers and four sisters. Isabel notes that Warburton acts as if she is an American "barbarian" , and he makes little allowance for her imagination or for her experience. Warburton admits to being confused in America, and believes that Americans need as much explanation in England as he had needed in America. Isabel likes Lord Warburton because he appears to have enjoyed the best things of life, but he also is not spoiled for it. He has a boyishness and kindness about him. Isabel confides in Ralph that she likes Warburton, and Ralph responds that he pities him. So he informs Isabel: "He's a man with a great position who's playing all sorts of tricks with it. He doesn't take himself seriously. He's the victim of a critical age; he has ceased to believe in himself and he doesn't know where to believe in. He can neither abolish himself as a nuisance nor maintain himself as an institution". Isabel tells Mr. Touchett, Ralph's father, that she does not understand Ralph's opinion of Lord Warburton. Mr. Touchett responds that Lord Warburton seems to want to "do away with many things," but also to remain himself. He notes that there are a great many people like Lord Warburton, and he is not sure if they are trying to start a revolution. Isabel is ecstatic at the thought that there might be a revolution, declaring that she would be on the side of the loyalists if there were such a revolution. Mr. Touchett notes that the desire for change among men such as Lord Warburton, and other radicals, is probably more theoretical than earnest. These progressive ideas are about their biggest luxury," he says

summary

As she was devoted to romantic effects Lord Warburton ventured to express a hope that she would come some day and see his house, a very curious old place. He extracted from Mrs. Touchett a promise that she would bring her niece to Lockleigh, and Ralph signified his willingness to attend the ladies if his father should be able to spare him. Lord Warburton assured our heroine that in the mean time his sisters would come and see her. She knew something about his sisters, having sounded him, during the hours they spent together while he was at Gardencourt, on many points connected with his family. When Isabel was interested she asked a great many questions, and as her companion was a copious talker she urged him on this occasion by no means in vain. He told her he had four sisters and two brothers and had lost both his parents. The brothers and sisters were very good people--"not particularly clever, you know," he said, "but very decent and pleasant;" and he was so good as to hope Miss Archer might know them well. One of the brothers was in the Church, settled in the family living, that of Lockleigh, which was a heavy, sprawling parish, and was an excellent fellow in spite of his thinking differently from himself on every conceivable topic. And then Lord Warburton mentioned some of the opinions held by his brother, which were opinions Isabel had often heard expressed and that she supposed to be entertained by a considerable portion of the human family. Many of them indeed she supposed she had held herself, till he assured her she was quite mistaken, that it was really impossible, that she had doubtless imagined she entertained them, but that she might depend that, if she thought them over a little, she would find there was nothing in them. When she answered that she had already thought several of the questions involved over very attentively he declared that she was only another example of what he had often been struck with--the fact that, of all the people in the world, the Americans were the most grossly superstitious. They were rank Tories and bigots, every one of them; there were no conservatives like American conservatives. Her uncle and her cousin were there to prove it; nothing could be more medieval than many of their views; they had ideas that people in England nowadays were ashamed to confess to; and they had the impudence moreover, said his lordship, laughing, to pretend they knew more about the needs and dangers of this poor dear stupid old England than he who was born in it and owned a considerable slice of it--the more shame to him! From all of which Isabel gathered that Lord Warburton was a nobleman of the newest pattern, a reformer, a radical, a contemner of ancient ways. His other brother, who was in the army in India, was rather wild and pig-headed and had not been of much use as yet but to make debts for Warburton to pay--one of the most precious privileges of an elder brother. "I don't think I shall pay any more," said her friend; "he lives a monstrous deal better than I do, enjoys unheard-of luxuries and thinks himself a much finer gentleman than I. As I'm a consistent radical I go in only for equality; I don't go in for the superiority of the younger brothers." Two of his four sisters, the second and fourth, were married, one of them having done very well, as they said, the other only so-so. The husband of the elder, Lord Haycock, was a very good fellow, but unfortunately a horrid Tory; and his wife, like all good English wives, was worse than her husband. The other had espoused a smallish squire in Norfolk and, though married but the other day, had already five children. This information and much more Lord Warburton imparted to his young American listener, taking pains to make many things clear and to lay bare to her apprehension the peculiarities of English life. Isabel was often amused at his explicitness and at the small allowance he seemed to make either for her own experience or for her imagination. "He thinks I'm a barbarian," she said, "and that I've never seen forks and spoons;" and she used to ask him artless questions for the pleasure of hearing him answer seriously. Then when he had fallen into the trap, "It's a pity you can't see me in my war-paint and feathers," she remarked; "if I had known how kind you are to the poor savages I would have brought over my native costume!" Lord Warburton had travelled through the United States and knew much more about them than Isabel; he was so good as to say that America was the most charming country in the world, but his recollections of it appeared to encourage the idea that Americans in England would need to have a great many things explained to them. "If I had only had you to explain things to me in America!" he said. "I was rather puzzled in your country; in fact I was quite bewildered, and the trouble was that the explanations only puzzled me more. You know I think they often gave me the wrong ones on purpose; they're rather clever about that over there. But when I explain you can trust me; about what I tell you there's no mistake." There was no mistake at least about his being very intelligent and cultivated and knowing almost everything in the world. Although he gave the most interesting and thrilling glimpses Isabel felt he never did it to exhibit himself, and though he had had rare chances and had tumbled in, as she put it, for high prizes, he was as far as possible from making a merit of it. He had enjoyed the best things of life, but they had not spoiled his sense of proportion. His quality was a mixture of the effect of rich experience--oh, so easily come by!--with a modesty at times almost boyish; the sweet and wholesome savour of which--it was as agreeable as something tasted--lost nothing from the addition of a tone of responsible kindness. "I like your specimen English gentleman very much," Isabel said to Ralph after Lord Warburton had gone. "I like him too--I love him well," Ralph returned. "But I pity him more." Isabel looked at him askance. "Why, that seems to me his only fault--that one can't pity him a little. He appears to have everything, to know everything, to be everything." "Oh, he's in a bad way!" Ralph insisted. "I suppose you don't mean in health?" "No, as to that he's detestably sound. What I mean is that he's a man with a great position who's playing all sorts of tricks with it. He doesn't take himself seriously." "Does he regard himself as a joke?" "Much worse; he regards himself as an imposition--as an abuse." "Well, perhaps he is," said Isabel. "Perhaps he is--though on the whole I don't think so. But in that case what's more pitiable than a sentient, self-conscious abuse planted by other hands, deeply rooted but aching with a sense of its injustice? For me, in his place, I could be as solemn as a statue of Buddha. He occupies a position that appeals to my imagination. Great responsibilities, great opportunities, great consideration, great wealth, great power, a natural share in the public affairs of a great country. But he's all in a muddle about himself, his position, his power, and indeed about everything in the world. He's the victim of a critical age; he has ceased to believe in himself and he doesn't know what to believe in. When I attempt to tell him (because if I were he I know very well what I should believe in) he calls me a pampered bigot. I believe he seriously thinks me an awful Philistine; he says I don't understand my time. I understand it certainly better than he, who can neither abolish himself as a nuisance nor maintain himself as an institution." "He doesn't look very wretched," Isabel observed. "Possibly not; though, being a man of a good deal of charming taste, I think he often has uncomfortable hours. But what is it to say of a being of his opportunities that he's not miserable? Besides, I believe he is." "I don't," said Isabel. "Well," her cousin rejoined, "if he isn't he ought to be!" In the afternoon she spent an hour with her uncle on the lawn, where the old man sat, as usual, with his shawl over his legs and his large cup of diluted tea in his hands. In the course of conversation he asked her what she thought of their late visitor. Isabel was prompt. "I think he's charming." "He's a nice person," said Mr. Touchett, "but I don't recommend you to fall in love with him." "I shall not do it then; I shall never fall in love but on your recommendation. Moreover," Isabel added, "my cousin gives me rather a sad account of Lord Warburton." "Oh, indeed? I don't know what there may be to say, but you must remember that Ralph must talk." "He thinks your friend's too subversive--or not subversive enough! I don't quite understand which," said Isabel. The old man shook his head slowly, smiled and put down his cup. "I don't know which either. He goes very far, but it's quite possible he doesn't go far enough. He seems to want to do away with a good many things, but he seems to want to remain himself. I suppose that's natural, but it's rather inconsistent." "Oh, I hope he'll remain himself," said Isabel. "If he were to be done away with his friends would miss him sadly." "Well," said the old man, "I guess he'll stay and amuse his friends. I should certainly miss him very much here at Gardencourt. He always amuses me when he comes over, and I think he amuses himself as well. There's a considerable number like him, round in society; they're very fashionable just now. I don't know what they're trying to do--whether they're trying to get up a revolution. I hope at any rate they'll put it off till after I'm gone. You see they want to disestablish everything; but I'm a pretty big landowner here, and I don't want to be disestablished. I wouldn't have come over if I had thought they were going to behave like that," Mr. Touchett went on with expanding hilarity. "I came over because I thought England was a safe country. I call it a regular fraud if they are going to introduce any considerable changes; there'll be a large number disappointed in that case." "Oh, I do hope they'll make a revolution!" Isabel exclaimed. "I should delight in seeing a revolution." "Let me see," said her uncle, with a humorous intention; "I forget whether you're on the side of the old or on the side of the new. I've heard you take such opposite views." "I'm on the side of both. I guess I'm a little on the side of everything. In a revolution--after it was well begun--I think I should be a high, proud loyalist. One sympathises more with them, and they've a chance to behave so exquisitely. I mean so picturesquely." "I don't know that I understand what you mean by behaving picturesquely, but it seems to me that you do that always, my dear." "Oh, you lovely man, if I could believe that!" the girl interrupted. "I'm afraid, after all, you won't have the pleasure of going gracefully to the guillotine here just now," Mr. Touchett went on. "If you want to see a big outbreak you must pay us a long visit. You see, when you come to the point it wouldn't suit them to be taken at their word." "Of whom are you speaking?" "Well, I mean Lord Warburton and his friends--the radicals of the upper class. Of course I only know the way it strikes me. They talk about the changes, but I don't think they quite realise. You and I, you know, we know what it is to have lived under democratic institutions: I always thought them very comfortable, but I was used to them from the first. And then I ain't a lord; you're a lady, my dear, but I ain't a lord. Now over here I don't think it quite comes home to them. It's a matter of every day and every hour, and I don't think many of them would find it as pleasant as what they've got. Of course if they want to try, it's their own business; but I expect they won't try very hard." "Don't you think they're sincere?" Isabel asked. "Well, they want to FEEL earnest," Mr. Touchett allowed; "but it seems as if they took it out in theories mostly. Their radical views are a kind of amusement; they've got to have some amusement, and they might have coarser tastes than that. You see they're very luxurious, and these progressive ideas are about their biggest luxury. They make them feel moral and yet don't damage their position. They think a great deal of their position; don't let one of them ever persuade you he doesn't, for if you were to proceed on that basis you'd be pulled up very short." Isabel followed her uncle's argument, which he unfolded with his quaint distinctness, most attentively, and though she was unacquainted with the British aristocracy she found it in harmony with her general impressions of human nature. But she felt moved to put in a protest on Lord Warburton's behalf. "I don't believe Lord Warburton's a humbug; I don't care what the others are. I should like to see Lord Warburton put to the test." "Heaven deliver me from my friends!" Mr. Touchett answered. "Lord Warburton's a very amiable young man--a very fine young man. He has a hundred thousand a year. He owns fifty thousand acres of the soil of this little island and ever so many other things besides. He has half a dozen houses to live in. He has a seat in Parliament as I have one at my own dinner-table. He has elegant tastes--cares for literature, for art, for science, for charming young ladies. The most elegant is his taste for the new views. It affords him a great deal of pleasure--more perhaps than anything else, except the young ladies. His old house over there--what does he call it, Lockleigh?--is very attractive; but I don't think it's as pleasant as this. That doesn't matter, however--he has so many others. His views don't hurt any one as far as I can see; they certainly don't hurt himself. And if there were to be a revolution he would come off very easily. They wouldn't touch him, they'd leave him as he is: he's too much liked." "Ah, he couldn't be a martyr even if he wished!" Isabel sighed. "That's a very poor position." "He'll never be a martyr unless you make him one," said the old man. Isabel shook her head; there might have been something laughable in the fact that she did it with a touch of melancholy. "I shall never make any one a martyr." "You'll never be one, I hope." "I hope not. But you don't pity Lord Warburton then as Ralph does?" Her uncle looked at her a while with genial acuteness. "Yes, I do, after all!"

Isabel is likened to an aesthetic object in Ralph's imagination, described as a "fine work of art." It is interesting to read the parallel between our approach to works of art and to Isabel Archer. One typically assumes a disinterested attitude to a work of art, insofar as one sees something is beautiful without conceiving of a use for that particular work. Similarly, Ralph has no idea what Isabel is good at -- he has no idea what her genius is for. Furthermore, the title of the work is called "the portrait of a lady," which likens Isabel's life to a pictorial painting. In the scene in the drawing room in Chapter 7, we get a first sense of how Isabel treats customs and manners that she does not understand. Mrs. Touchett thinks it is inappropriate for a young girl to stay alone with two unwed men late at night, but Isabel refuses to leave because she thinks the situation is perfectly innocent. When she finds out that such behavior is frowned upon, she is interested because it is a piece of knowledge -- not one that she will necessarily conform to, but rather one that will allow her to understand her options. This foreshadows the quality of her stubbornness: she will not behave as others want her to, but she wants to know how others want her to behave. These others will perceive her behavior though as simply doing the opposite of what they would like her to do. Chapter 8 is an analysis of Lord Warburton as a specimen of the age. He comes from a very privileged background, but he also sides theoretically with radicals rather than conservatives in terms of how the country might change for the causes of more social justice. Of course, this position is more theoretical, because the Touchetts believe Lord Warburton has such a radical opinion only because he lives in such luxury. In other words, thinking about the possibility of social change is a luxury which can contradictorily only be enjoyed from a position of privilege -- a privilege granted from the very institution which one might theoretically want to change. James is being critical of the possibility of society to really change given that the people in power do not benefit from its changing. In Chapter 9, we see Lord Warburton is beginning to fall in love with Isabel. Isabel's reacts both naively and coldly to this prospect: she seems to fear intimacy. This reaction is a reference to an earlier description of Isabel: the narrator has told us that the "deepest" thought in her mind is that she might one day give herself wholly to a man in marriage, a prospect which she finds more "formidable" than attractive . The reader then begins to ask himself/herself: why is Isabel afraid of this prospect? Does she fear personal intimacy? Does she fear sexual intimacy? Does she think that she will lose her own independence?

analysis

The two Misses Molyneux, this nobleman's sisters, came presently to call upon her, and Isabel took a fancy to the young ladies, who appeared to her to show a most original stamp. It is true that when she described them to her cousin by that term he declared that no epithet could be less applicable than this to the two Misses Molyneux, since there were fifty thousand young women in England who exactly resembled them. Deprived of this advantage, however, Isabel's visitors retained that of an extreme sweetness and shyness of demeanour, and of having, as she thought, eyes like the balanced basins, the circles of "ornamental water," set, in parterres, among the geraniums. "They're not morbid, at any rate, whatever they are," our heroine said to herself; and she deemed this a great charm, for two or three of the friends of her girlhood had been regrettably open to the charge (they would have been so nice without it), to say nothing of Isabel's having occasionally suspected it as a tendency of her own. The Misses Molyneux were not in their first youth, but they had bright, fresh complexions and something of the smile of childhood. Yes, their eyes, which Isabel admired, were round, quiet and contented, and their figures, also of a generous roundness, were encased in sealskin jackets. Their friendliness was great, so great that they were almost embarrassed to show it; they seemed somewhat afraid of the young lady from the other side of the world and rather looked than spoke their good wishes. But they made it clear to her that they hoped she would come to luncheon at Lockleigh, where they lived with their brother, and then they might see her very, very often. They wondered if she wouldn't come over some day, and sleep: they were expecting some people on the twenty-ninth, so perhaps she would come while the people were there. "I'm afraid it isn't any one very remarkable," said the elder sister; "but I dare say you'll take us as you find us." "I shall find you delightful; I think you're enchanting just as you are," replied Isabel, who often praised profusely. Her visitors flushed, and her cousin told her, after they were gone, that if she said such things to those poor girls they would think she was in some wild, free manner practising on them: he was sure it was the first time they had been called enchanting. "I can't help it," Isabel answered. "I think it's lovely to be so quiet and reasonable and satisfied. I should like to be like that." "Heaven forbid!" cried Ralph with ardour. "I mean to try and imitate them," said Isabel. "I want very much to see them at home." She had this pleasure a few days later, when, with Ralph and his mother, she drove over to Lockleigh. She found the Misses Molyneux sitting in a vast drawing-room (she perceived afterwards it was one of several) in a wilderness of faded chintz; they were dressed on this occasion in black velveteen. Isabel liked them even better at home than she had done at Gardencourt, and was more than ever struck with the fact that they were not morbid. It had seemed to her before that if they had a fault it was a want of play of mind; but she presently saw they were capable of deep emotion. Before luncheon she was alone with them for some time, on one side of the room, while Lord Warburton, at a distance, talked to Mrs. Touchett. "Is it true your brother's such a great radical?" Isabel asked. She knew it was true, but we have seen that her interest in human nature was keen, and she had a desire to draw the Misses Molyneux out. "Oh dear, yes; he's immensely advanced," said Mildred, the younger sister. "At the same time Warburton's very reasonable," Miss Molyneux observed. Isabel watched him a moment at the other side of the room; he was clearly trying hard to make himself agreeable to Mrs. Touchett. Ralph had met the frank advances of one of the dogs before the fire that the temperature of an English August, in the ancient expanses, had not made an impertinence. "Do you suppose your brother's sincere?" Isabel enquired with a smile. "Oh, he must be, you know!" Mildred exclaimed quickly, while the elder sister gazed at our heroine in silence. "Do you think he would stand the test?" "The test?" "I mean for instance having to give up all this." "Having to give up Lockleigh?" said Miss Molyneux, finding her voice. "Yes, and the other places; what are they called?" The two sisters exchanged an almost frightened glance. "Do you mean--do you mean on account of the expense?" the younger one asked. "I dare say he might let one or two of his houses," said the other. "Let them for nothing?" Isabel demanded. "I can't fancy his giving up his property," said Miss Molyneux. "Ah, I'm afraid he is an impostor!" Isabel returned. "Don't you think it's a false position?" Her companions, evidently, had lost themselves. "My brother's position?" Miss Molyneux enquired. "It's thought a very good position," said the younger sister. "It's the first position in this part of the county." "I dare say you think me very irreverent," Isabel took occasion to remark. "I suppose you revere your brother and are rather afraid of him." "Of course one looks up to one's brother," said Miss Molyneux simply. "If you do that he must be very good--because you, evidently, are beautifully good." "He's most kind. It will never be known, the good he does." "His ability is known," Mildred added; "every one thinks it's immense." "Oh, I can see that," said Isabel. "But if I were he I should wish to fight to the death: I mean for the heritage of the past. I should hold it tight." "I think one ought to be liberal," Mildred argued gently. "We've always been so, even from the earliest times." "Ah well," said Isabel, "you've made a great success of it; I don't wonder you like it. I see you're very fond of crewels." When Lord Warburton showed her the house, after luncheon, it seemed to her a matter of course that it should be a noble picture. Within, it had been a good deal modernised--some of its best points had lost their purity; but as they saw it from the gardens, a stout grey pile, of the softest, deepest, most weather-fretted hue, rising from a broad, still moat, it affected the young visitor as a castle in a legend. The day was cool and rather lustreless; the first note of autumn had been struck, and the watery sunshine rested on the walls in blurred and desultory gleams, washing them, as it were, in places tenderly chosen, where the ache of antiquity was keenest. Her host's brother, the Vicar, had come to luncheon, and Isabel had had five minutes' talk with him--time enough to institute a search for a rich ecclesiasticism and give it up as vain. The marks of the Vicar of Lockleigh were a big, athletic figure, a candid, natural countenance, a capacious appetite and a tendency to indiscriminate laughter. Isabel learned afterwards from her cousin that before taking orders he had been a mighty wrestler and that he was still, on occasion--in the privacy of the family circle as it were--quite capable of flooring his man. Isabel liked him--she was in the mood for liking everything; but her imagination was a good deal taxed to think of him as a source of spiritual aid. The whole party, on leaving lunch, went to walk in the grounds; but Lord Warburton exercised some ingenuity in engaging his least familiar guest in a stroll apart from the others. "I wish you to see the place properly, seriously," he said. "You can't do so if your attention is distracted by irrelevant gossip." His own conversation (though he told Isabel a good deal about the house, which had a very curious history) was not purely archaeological; he reverted at intervals to matters more personal--matters personal to the young lady as well as to himself. But at last, after a pause of some duration, returning for a moment to their ostensible theme, "Ah, well," he said, "I'm very glad indeed you like the old barrack. I wish you could see more of it--that you could stay here a while. My sisters have taken an immense fancy to you--if that would be any inducement." "There's no want of inducements," Isabel answered; "but I'm afraid I can't make engagements. I'm quite in my aunt's hands." "Ah, pardon me if I say I don't exactly believe that. I'm pretty sure you can do whatever you want." "I'm sorry if I make that impression on you; I don't think it's a nice impression to make." "It has the merit of permitting me to hope." And Lord Warburton paused a moment. "To hope what?" "That in future I may see you often." "Ah," said Isabel, "to enjoy that pleasure I needn't be so terribly emancipated." "Doubtless not; and yet, at the same time, I don't think your uncle likes me." "You're very much mistaken. I've heard him speak very highly of you." "I'm glad you have talked about me," said Lord Warburton. "But, I nevertheless don't think he'd like me to keep coming to Gardencourt." "I can't answer for my uncle's tastes," the girl rejoined, "though I ought as far as possible to take them into account. But for myself I shall be very glad to see you." "Now that's what I like to hear you say. I'm charmed when you say that." "You're easily charmed, my lord," said Isabel. "No, I'm not easily charmed!" And then he stopped a moment. "But you've charmed me, Miss Archer." These words were uttered with an indefinable sound which startled the girl; it struck her as the prelude to something grave: she had heard the sound before and she recognised it. She had no wish, however, that for the moment such a prelude should have a sequel, and she said as gaily as possible and as quickly as an appreciable degree of agitation would allow her: "I'm afraid there's no prospect of my being able to come here again." "Never?" said Lord Warburton. "I won't say 'never'; I should feel very melodramatic." "May I come and see you then some day next week?" "Most assuredly. What is there to prevent it?" "Nothing tangible. But with you I never feel safe. I've a sort of sense that you're always summing people up." "You don't of necessity lose by that." "It's very kind of you to say so; but, even if I gain, stern justice is not what I most love. Is Mrs. Touchett going to take you abroad?" "I hope so." "Is England not good enough for you?" "That's a very Machiavellian speech; it doesn't deserve an answer. I want to see as many countries as I can." "Then you'll go on judging, I suppose." "Enjoying, I hope, too." "Yes, that's what you enjoy most; I can't make out what you're up to," said Lord Warburton. "You strike me as having mysterious purposes--vast designs." "You're so good as to have a theory about me which I don't at all fill out. Is there anything mysterious in a purpose entertained and executed every year, in the most public manner, by fifty thousand of my fellow-countrymen--the purpose of improving one's mind by foreign travel?" "You can't improve your mind, Miss Archer," her companion declared. "It's already a most formidable instrument. It looks down on us all; it despises us." "Despises you? You're making fun of me," said Isabel seriously. "Well, you think us 'quaint'--that's the same thing. I won't be thought 'quaint,' to begin with; I'm not so in the least. I protest." "That protest is one of the quaintest things I've ever heard," Isabel answered with a smile. Lord Warburton was briefly silent. "You judge only from the outside--you don't care," he said presently. "You only care to amuse yourself." The note she had heard in his voice a moment before reappeared, and mixed with it now was an audible strain of bitterness--a bitterness so abrupt and inconsequent that the girl was afraid she had hurt him. She had often heard that the English are a highly eccentric people, and she had even read in some ingenious author that they are at bottom the most romantic of races. Was Lord Warburton suddenly turning romantic--was he going to make her a scene, in his own house, only the third time they had met? She was reassured quickly enough by her sense of his great good manners, which was not impaired by the fact that he had already touched the furthest limit of good taste in expressing his admiration of a young lady who had confided in his hospitality. She was right in trusting to his good manners, for he presently went on, laughing a little and without a trace of the accent that had discomposed her: "I don't mean of course that you amuse yourself with trifles. You select great materials; the foibles, the afflictions of human nature, the peculiarities of nations!" "As regards that," said Isabel, "I should find in my own nation entertainment for a lifetime. But we've a long drive, and my aunt will soon wish to start." She turned back toward the others and Lord Warburton walked beside her in silence. But before they reached the others, "I shall come and see you next week," he said. She had received an appreciable shock, but as it died away she felt that she couldn't pretend to herself that it was altogether a painful one. Nevertheless she made answer to his declaration, coldly enough, "Just as you please." And her coldness was not the calculation of her effect--a game she played in a much smaller degree than would have seemed probable to many critics. It came from a certain fear.

Lord Warburton's two sisters, the Misses Molyneux, come to visit Gardencourt. Isabel notes that they are very timid but also very sweet, with the charm of not being "morbid". They invite her to Lockleigh during a time in which other guests will also be present. When Isabel visits them at Lockleigh, she asks if their brother, Lord Warburton, is really so radical that he would give up everything if he were put to the test. The two sisters look frightened at the prospect. Isabel then concludes that he must be an impostor. Mildred Molyneux attests that it has always been a tradition in their family to be liberal. Isabel sees Lockleigh as a "castle in a legend". She meets Lord Warburton's brother, the Vicar, who she can see as a very strong man, but whom she has difficulty imagining as a spiritual aid. The group goes on a stroll, and Lord Warburton speaks privately with Isabel during this stroll. He tells her that he finds her charming. Isabel senses that this is "the prelude to something grave" and quickly utters that she does not believe she will be visiting Lockleigh again. He tells her he will visit her at Gardencourt, even though he believes Mr. Touchett does not like him being there. Lord Warburton tells Isabel that he does not feel safe with her, having the sense that she is always summing people up, and that she has mysterious purposes. Isabel tells him that she only wants to improve her mind by foreign travel. He tells her that her mind is already a formidable instrument. It looks down on us all; it despises us," he adds. Isabel tells him that he is being quite "quaint. He then seems to bitterly respond that she "judges only from the outside" and that she does not really care , even while she selects the great materials with which to amuse herself. He tells her he will visit her again. She responds coldly, "Just as you please". Her coldness, though, is calculated, and it comes from a fear deep within her

summary

The two Misses Molyneux, this nobleman's sisters, came presently to call upon her, and Isabel took a fancy to the young ladies, who appeared to her to show a most original stamp. It is true that when she described them to her cousin by that term he declared that no epithet could be less applicable than this to the two Misses Molyneux, since there were fifty thousand young women in England who exactly resembled them. Deprived of this advantage, however, Isabel's visitors retained that of an extreme sweetness and shyness of demeanour, and of having, as she thought, eyes like the balanced basins, the circles of "ornamental water," set, in parterres, among the geraniums. "They're not morbid, at any rate, whatever they are," our heroine said to herself; and she deemed this a great charm, for two or three of the friends of her girlhood had been regrettably open to the charge (they would have been so nice without it), to say nothing of Isabel's having occasionally suspected it as a tendency of her own. The Misses Molyneux were not in their first youth, but they had bright, fresh complexions and something of the smile of childhood. Yes, their eyes, which Isabel admired, were round, quiet and contented, and their figures, also of a generous roundness, were encased in sealskin jackets. Their friendliness was great, so great that they were almost embarrassed to show it; they seemed somewhat afraid of the young lady from the other side of the world and rather looked than spoke their good wishes. But they made it clear to her that they hoped she would come to luncheon at Lockleigh, where they lived with their brother, and then they might see her very, very often. They wondered if she wouldn't come over some day, and sleep: they were expecting some people on the twenty-ninth, so perhaps she would come while the people were there. "I'm afraid it isn't any one very remarkable," said the elder sister; "but I dare say you'll take us as you find us." "I shall find you delightful; I think you're enchanting just as you are," replied Isabel, who often praised profusely. Her visitors flushed, and her cousin told her, after they were gone, that if she said such things to those poor girls they would think she was in some wild, free manner practising on them: he was sure it was the first time they had been called enchanting. "I can't help it," Isabel answered. "I think it's lovely to be so quiet and reasonable and satisfied. I should like to be like that." "Heaven forbid!" cried Ralph with ardour. "I mean to try and imitate them," said Isabel. "I want very much to see them at home." She had this pleasure a few days later, when, with Ralph and his mother, she drove over to Lockleigh. She found the Misses Molyneux sitting in a vast drawing-room (she perceived afterwards it was one of several) in a wilderness of faded chintz; they were dressed on this occasion in black velveteen. Isabel liked them even better at home than she had done at Gardencourt, and was more than ever struck with the fact that they were not morbid. It had seemed to her before that if they had a fault it was a want of play of mind; but she presently saw they were capable of deep emotion. Before luncheon she was alone with them for some time, on one side of the room, while Lord Warburton, at a distance, talked to Mrs. Touchett. "Is it true your brother's such a great radical?" Isabel asked. She knew it was true, but we have seen that her interest in human nature was keen, and she had a desire to draw the Misses Molyneux out. "Oh dear, yes; he's immensely advanced," said Mildred, the younger sister. "At the same time Warburton's very reasonable," Miss Molyneux observed. Isabel watched him a moment at the other side of the room; he was clearly trying hard to make himself agreeable to Mrs. Touchett. Ralph had met the frank advances of one of the dogs before the fire that the temperature of an English August, in the ancient expanses, had not made an impertinence. "Do you suppose your brother's sincere?" Isabel enquired with a smile. "Oh, he must be, you know!" Mildred exclaimed quickly, while the elder sister gazed at our heroine in silence. "Do you think he would stand the test?" "The test?" "I mean for instance having to give up all this." "Having to give up Lockleigh?" said Miss Molyneux, finding her voice. "Yes, and the other places; what are they called?" The two sisters exchanged an almost frightened glance. "Do you mean--do you mean on account of the expense?" the younger one asked. "I dare say he might let one or two of his houses," said the other. "Let them for nothing?" Isabel demanded. "I can't fancy his giving up his property," said Miss Molyneux. "Ah, I'm afraid he is an impostor!" Isabel returned. "Don't you think it's a false position?" Her companions, evidently, had lost themselves. "My brother's position?" Miss Molyneux enquired. "It's thought a very good position," said the younger sister. "It's the first position in this part of the county." "I dare say you think me very irreverent," Isabel took occasion to remark. "I suppose you revere your brother and are rather afraid of him." "Of course one looks up to one's brother," said Miss Molyneux simply. "If you do that he must be very good--because you, evidently, are beautifully good." "He's most kind. It will never be known, the good he does." "His ability is known," Mildred added; "every one thinks it's immense." "Oh, I can see that," said Isabel. "But if I were he I should wish to fight to the death: I mean for the heritage of the past. I should hold it tight." "I think one ought to be liberal," Mildred argued gently. "We've always been so, even from the earliest times." "Ah well," said Isabel, "you've made a great success of it; I don't wonder you like it. I see you're very fond of crewels." When Lord Warburton showed her the house, after luncheon, it seemed to her a matter of course that it should be a noble picture. Within, it had been a good deal modernised--some of its best points had lost their purity; but as they saw it from the gardens, a stout grey pile, of the softest, deepest, most weather-fretted hue, rising from a broad, still moat, it affected the young visitor as a castle in a legend. The day was cool and rather lustreless; the first note of autumn had been struck, and the watery sunshine rested on the walls in blurred and desultory gleams, washing them, as it were, in places tenderly chosen, where the ache of antiquity was keenest. Her host's brother, the Vicar, had come to luncheon, and Isabel had had five minutes' talk with him--time enough to institute a search for a rich ecclesiasticism and give it up as vain. The marks of the Vicar of Lockleigh were a big, athletic figure, a candid, natural countenance, a capacious appetite and a tendency to indiscriminate laughter. Isabel learned afterwards from her cousin that before taking orders he had been a mighty wrestler and that he was still, on occasion--in the privacy of the family circle as it were--quite capable of flooring his man. Isabel liked him--she was in the mood for liking everything; but her imagination was a good deal taxed to think of him as a source of spiritual aid. The whole party, on leaving lunch, went to walk in the grounds; but Lord Warburton exercised some ingenuity in engaging his least familiar guest in a stroll apart from the others. "I wish you to see the place properly, seriously," he said. "You can't do so if your attention is distracted by irrelevant gossip." His own conversation (though he told Isabel a good deal about the house, which had a very curious history) was not purely archaeological; he reverted at intervals to matters more personal--matters personal to the young lady as well as to himself. But at last, after a pause of some duration, returning for a moment to their ostensible theme, "Ah, well," he said, "I'm very glad indeed you like the old barrack. I wish you could see more of it--that you could stay here a while. My sisters have taken an immense fancy to you--if that would be any inducement." "There's no want of inducements," Isabel answered; "but I'm afraid I can't make engagements. I'm quite in my aunt's hands." "Ah, pardon me if I say I don't exactly believe that. I'm pretty sure you can do whatever you want." "I'm sorry if I make that impression on you; I don't think it's a nice impression to make." "It has the merit of permitting me to hope." And Lord Warburton paused a moment. "To hope what?" "That in future I may see you often." "Ah," said Isabel, "to enjoy that pleasure I needn't be so terribly emancipated." "Doubtless not; and yet, at the same time, I don't think your uncle likes me." "You're very much mistaken. I've heard him speak very highly of you." "I'm glad you have talked about me," said Lord Warburton. "But, I nevertheless don't think he'd like me to keep coming to Gardencourt." "I can't answer for my uncle's tastes," the girl rejoined, "though I ought as far as possible to take them into account. But for myself I shall be very glad to see you." "Now that's what I like to hear you say. I'm charmed when you say that." "You're easily charmed, my lord," said Isabel. "No, I'm not easily charmed!" And then he stopped a moment. "But you've charmed me, Miss Archer." These words were uttered with an indefinable sound which startled the girl; it struck her as the prelude to something grave: she had heard the sound before and she recognised it. She had no wish, however, that for the moment such a prelude should have a sequel, and she said as gaily as possible and as quickly as an appreciable degree of agitation would allow her: "I'm afraid there's no prospect of my being able to come here again." "Never?" said Lord Warburton. "I won't say 'never'; I should feel very melodramatic." "May I come and see you then some day next week?" "Most assuredly. What is there to prevent it?" "Nothing tangible. But with you I never feel safe. I've a sort of sense that you're always summing people up." "You don't of necessity lose by that." "It's very kind of you to say so; but, even if I gain, stern justice is not what I most love. Is Mrs. Touchett going to take you abroad?" "I hope so." "Is England not good enough for you?" "That's a very Machiavellian speech; it doesn't deserve an answer. I want to see as many countries as I can." "Then you'll go on judging, I suppose." "Enjoying, I hope, too." "Yes, that's what you enjoy most; I can't make out what you're up to," said Lord Warburton. "You strike me as having mysterious purposes--vast designs." "You're so good as to have a theory about me which I don't at all fill out. Is there anything mysterious in a purpose entertained and executed every year, in the most public manner, by fifty thousand of my fellow-countrymen--the purpose of improving one's mind by foreign travel?" "You can't improve your mind, Miss Archer," her companion declared. "It's already a most formidable instrument. It looks down on us all; it despises us." "Despises you? You're making fun of me," said Isabel seriously. "Well, you think us 'quaint'--that's the same thing. I won't be thought 'quaint,' to begin with; I'm not so in the least. I protest." "That protest is one of the quaintest things I've ever heard," Isabel answered with a smile. Lord Warburton was briefly silent. "You judge only from the outside--you don't care," he said presently. "You only care to amuse yourself." The note she had heard in his voice a moment before reappeared, and mixed with it now was an audible strain of bitterness--a bitterness so abrupt and inconsequent that the girl was afraid she had hurt him. She had often heard that the English are a highly eccentric people, and she had even read in some ingenious author that they are at bottom the most romantic of races. Was Lord Warburton suddenly turning romantic--was he going to make her a scene, in his own house, only the third time they had met? She was reassured quickly enough by her sense of his great good manners, which was not impaired by the fact that he had already touched the furthest limit of good taste in expressing his admiration of a young lady who had confided in his hospitality. She was right in trusting to his good manners, for he presently went on, laughing a little and without a trace of the accent that had discomposed her: "I don't mean of course that you amuse yourself with trifles. You select great materials; the foibles, the afflictions of human nature, the peculiarities of nations!" "As regards that," said Isabel, "I should find in my own nation entertainment for a lifetime. But we've a long drive, and my aunt will soon wish to start." She turned back toward the others and Lord Warburton walked beside her in silence. But before they reached the others, "I shall come and see you next week," he said. She had received an appreciable shock, but as it died away she felt that she couldn't pretend to herself that it was altogether a painful one. Nevertheless she made answer to his declaration, coldly enough, "Just as you please." And her coldness was not the calculation of her effect--a game she played in a much smaller degree than would have seemed probable to many critics. It came from a certain fear.

Isabel is likened to an aesthetic object in Ralph's imagination, described as a "fine work of art." It is interesting to read the parallel between our approach to works of art and to Isabel Archer. One typically assumes a disinterested attitude to a work of art, insofar as one sees something is beautiful without conceiving of a use for that particular work. Similarly, Ralph has no idea what Isabel is good at -- he has no idea what her genius is for. Furthermore, the title of the work is called "the portrait of a lady," which likens Isabel's life to a pictorial painting. In the scene in the drawing room in Chapter 7, we get a first sense of how Isabel treats customs and manners that she does not understand. Mrs. Touchett thinks it is inappropriate for a young girl to stay alone with two unwed men late at night, but Isabel refuses to leave because she thinks the situation is perfectly innocent. When she finds out that such behavior is frowned upon, she is interested because it is a piece of knowledge -- not one that she will necessarily conform to, but rather one that will allow her to understand her options. This foreshadows the quality of her stubbornness: she will not behave as others want her to, but she wants to know how others want her to behave. These others will perceive her behavior though as simply doing the opposite of what they would like her to do. Chapter 8 is an analysis of Lord Warburton as a specimen of the age. He comes from a very privileged background, but he also sides theoretically with radicals rather than conservatives in terms of how the country might change for the causes of more social justice. Of course, this position is more theoretical, because the Touchetts believe Lord Warburton has such a radical opinion only because he lives in such luxury. In other words, thinking about the possibility of social change is a luxury which can contradictorily only be enjoyed from a position of privilege -- a privilege granted from the very institution which one might theoretically want to change. James is being critical of the possibility of society to really change given that the people in power do not benefit from its changing. In Chapter 9, we see Lord Warburton is beginning to fall in love with Isabel. Isabel's reacts both naively and coldly to this prospect: she seems to fear intimacy. This reaction is a reference to an earlier description of Isabel: the narrator has told us that the "deepest" thought in her mind is that she might one day give herself wholly to a man in marriage, a prospect which she finds more "formidable" than attractive . The reader then begins to ask himself/herself: why is Isabel afraid of this prospect? Does she fear personal intimacy? Does she fear sexual intimacy? Does she think that she will lose her own independence?

analysis

The day after her visit to Lockleigh she received a note from her friend Miss Stackpole--a note of which the envelope, exhibiting in conjunction the postmark of Liverpool and the neat calligraphy of the quick-fingered Henrietta, caused her some liveliness of emotion. "Here I am, my lovely friend," Miss Stackpole wrote; "I managed to get off at last. I decided only the night before I left New York--the Interviewer having come round to my figure. I put a few things into a bag, like a veteran journalist, and came down to the steamer in a street-car. Where are you and where can we meet? I suppose you're visiting at some castle or other and have already acquired the correct accent. Perhaps even you have married a lord; I almost hope you have, for I want some introductions to the first people and shall count on you for a few. The Interviewer wants some light on the nobility. My first impressions (of the people at large) are not rose-coloured; but I wish to talk them over with you, and you know that, whatever I am, at least I'm not superficial. I've also something very particular to tell you. Do appoint a meeting as quickly as you can; come to London (I should like so much to visit the sights with you) or else let me come to you, wherever you are. I will do so with pleasure; for you know everything interests me and I wish to see as much as possible of the inner life." Isabel judged best not to show this letter to her uncle; but she acquainted him with its purport, and, as she expected, he begged her instantly to assure Miss Stackpole, in his name, that he should be delighted to receive her at Gardencourt. "Though she's a literary lady," he said, "I suppose that, being an American, she won't show me up, as that other one did. She has seen others like me." "She has seen no other so delightful!" Isabel answered; but she was not altogether at ease about Henrietta's reproductive instincts, which belonged to that side of her friend's character which she regarded with least complacency. She wrote to Miss Stackpole, however, that she would be very welcome under Mr. Touchett's roof; and this alert young woman lost no time in announcing her prompt approach. She had gone up to London, and it was from that centre that she took the train for the station nearest to Gardencourt, where Isabel and Ralph were in waiting to receive her. "Shall I love her or shall I hate her?" Ralph asked while they moved along the platform. "Whichever you do will matter very little to her," said Isabel. "She doesn't care a straw what men think of her." "As a man I'm bound to dislike her then. She must be a kind of monster. Is she very ugly?" "No, she's decidedly pretty." "A female interviewer--a reporter in petticoats? I'm very curious to see her," Ralph conceded. "It's very easy to laugh at her but it is not easy to be as brave as she." "I should think not; crimes of violence and attacks on the person require more or less pluck. Do you suppose she'll interview me?" "Never in the world. She'll not think you of enough importance." "You'll see," said Ralph. "She'll send a description of us all, including Bunchie, to her newspaper." "I shall ask her not to," Isabel answered. "You think she's capable of it then?" "Perfectly." "And yet you've made her your bosom-friend?" "I've not made her my bosom-friend; but I like her in spite of her faults." "Ah well," said Ralph, "I'm afraid I shall dislike her in spite of her merits." "You'll probably fall in love with her at the end of three days." "And have my love-letters published in the Interviewer? Never!" cried the young man. The train presently arrived, and Miss Stackpole, promptly descending, proved, as Isabel had promised, quite delicately, even though rather provincially, fair. She was a neat, plump person, of medium stature, with a round face, a small mouth, a delicate complexion, a bunch of light brown ringlets at the back of her head and a peculiarly open, surprised-looking eye. The most striking point in her appearance was the remarkable fixedness of this organ, which rested without impudence or defiance, but as if in conscientious exercise of a natural right, upon every object it happened to encounter. It rested in this manner upon Ralph himself, a little arrested by Miss Stackpole's gracious and comfortable aspect, which hinted that it wouldn't be so easy as he had assumed to disapprove of her. 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. She answered the enquiries made of her by Isabel, however, and in which the young man ventured to join, with copious lucidity; and later, in the library at Gardencourt, when she had made the acquaintance of Mr. Touchett (his wife not having thought it necessary to appear) did more to give the measure of her confidence in her powers. "Well, I should like to know whether you consider yourselves American or English," she broke out. "If once I knew I could talk to you accordingly." "Talk to us anyhow and we shall be thankful," Ralph liberally answered. She fixed her eyes on him, and there was something in their character that reminded him of large polished buttons--buttons that might have fixed the elastic loops of some tense receptacle: he seemed to see the reflection of surrounding objects on the pupil. The expression of a button is not usually deemed human, but there was something in Miss Stackpole's gaze that made him, as a very modest man, feel vaguely embarrassed--less inviolate, more dishonoured, than he liked. This sensation, it must be added, after he had spent a day or two in her company, sensibly diminished, though it never wholly lapsed. "I don't suppose that you're going to undertake to persuade me that you're an American," she said. "To please you I'll be an Englishman, I'll be a Turk!" "Well, if you can change about that way you're very welcome," Miss Stackpole returned. "I'm sure you understand everything and that differences of nationality are no barrier to you," Ralph went on. Miss Stackpole gazed at him still. "Do you mean the foreign languages?" "The languages are nothing. I mean the spirit--the genius." "I'm not sure that I understand you," said the correspondent of the Interviewer; "but I expect I shall before I leave." "He's what's called a cosmopolite," Isabel suggested. "That means he's a little of everything and not much of any. I must say I think patriotism is like charity--it begins at home." "Ah, but where does home begin, Miss Stackpole?" Ralph enquired. "I don't know where it begins, but I know where it ends. It ended a long time before I got here." "Don't you like it over here?" asked Mr. Touchett with his aged, innocent voice. "Well, sir, I haven't quite made up my mind what ground I shall take. I feel a good deal cramped. I felt it on the journey from Liverpool to London." "Perhaps you were in a crowded carriage," Ralph suggested. "Yes, but it was crowded with friends--party of Americans whose acquaintance I had made upon the steamer; a lovely group from Little Rock, Arkansas. In spite of that I felt cramped--I felt something pressing upon me; I couldn't tell what it was. I felt at the very commencement as if I were not going to accord with the atmosphere. But I suppose I shall make my own atmosphere. That's the true way--then you can breathe. Your surroundings seem very attractive." "Ah, we too are a lovely group!" said Ralph. "Wait a little and you'll see." Miss Stackpole showed every disposition to wait and evidently was prepared to make a considerable stay at Gardencourt. She occupied herself in the mornings with literary labour; but in spite of this Isabel spent many hours with her friend, who, once her daily task performed, deprecated, in fact defied, isolation. Isabel speedily found occasion to desire her to desist from celebrating the charms of their common sojourn in print, having discovered, on the second morning of Miss Stackpole's visit, that she was engaged on a letter to the Interviewer, of which the title, in her exquisitely neat and legible hand (exactly that of the copybooks which our heroine remembered at school) was "Americans and Tudors--Glimpses of Gardencourt." Miss Stackpole, with the best conscience in the world, offered to read her letter to Isabel, who immediately put in her protest. "I don't think you ought to do that. I don't think you ought to describe the place." Henrietta gazed at her as usual. "Why, it's just what the people want, and it's a lovely place." "It's too lovely to be put in the newspapers, and it's not what my uncle wants." "Don't you believe that!" cried Henrietta. "They're always delighted afterwards." "My uncle won't be delighted--nor my cousin either. They'll consider it a breach of hospitality." Miss Stackpole showed no sense of confusion; she simply wiped her pen, very neatly, upon an elegant little implement which she kept for the purpose, and put away her manuscript. "Of course if you don't approve I won't do it; but I sacrifice a beautiful subject." "There are plenty of other subjects, there are subjects all round you. We'll take some drives; I'll show you some charming scenery." "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." "He would have died of it!" Isabel exclaimed. "Not of the severity, but of the publicity." "Well, I should have liked to kill him a little. And I should have delighted to do your uncle, who seems to me a much nobler type--the American faithful still. He's a grand old man; I don't see how he can object to my paying him honour." Isabel looked at her companion in much wonderment; it struck her as strange that a nature in which she found so much to esteem should break down so in spots. "My poor Henrietta," she said, "you've no sense of privacy." Henrietta coloured deeply, and for a moment her brilliant eyes were suffused, while Isabel found her more than ever inconsequent. "You do me great injustice," said Miss Stackpole with dignity. "I've never written a word about myself!" "I'm very sure of that; but it seems to me one should be modest for others also!" "Ah, that's very good!" cried Henrietta, seizing her pen again. "Just let me make a note of it and I'll put it in somewhere." she was a thoroughly good-natured woman, and half an hour later she was in as cheerful a mood as should have been looked for in a newspaper-lady in want of matter. "I've promised to do the social side," she said to Isabel; "and how can I do it unless I get ideas? If I can't describe this place don't you know some place I can describe?" Isabel promised she would bethink herself, and the next day, in conversation with her friend, she happened to mention her visit to Lord Warburton's ancient house. "Ah, you must take me there--that's just the place for me!" Miss Stackpole cried. "I must get a glimpse of the nobility." "I can't take you," said Isabel; "but Lord Warburton's coming here, and you'll have a chance to see him and observe him. Only if you intend to repeat his conversation I shall certainly give him warning." "Don't do that," her companion pleaded; "I want him to be natural." "An Englishman's never so natural as when he's holding his tongue," Isabel declared. It was not apparent, at the end of three days, that her cousin had, according to her prophecy, lost his heart to their visitor, though he had spent a good deal of time in her society. They strolled about the park together and sat under the trees, and in the afternoon, when it was delightful to float along the Thames, Miss Stackpole occupied a place in the boat in which hitherto Ralph had had but a single companion. Her presence proved somehow less irreducible to soft particles than Ralph had expected in the natural perturbation of his sense of the perfect solubility of that of his cousin; for the correspondent of the Interviewer prompted mirth in him, and he had long since decided that the crescendo of mirth should be the flower of his declining days. Henrietta, on her side, failed a little to justify Isabel's declaration with regard to her indifference to masculine opinion; for poor Ralph appeared to have presented himself to her as an irritating problem, which it would be almost immoral not to work out. "What does he do for a living?" she asked of Isabel the evening of her arrival. "Does he go round all day with his hands in his pockets?" "He does nothing," smiled Isabel; "he's a gentleman of large leisure." "Well, I call that a shame--when I have to work like a car-conductor," Miss Stackpole replied. "I should like to show him up." "He's in wretched health; he's quite unfit for work," Isabel urged. "Pshaw! don't you believe it. I work when I'm sick," cried her friend. Later, when she stepped into the boat on joining the water-party, she remarked to Ralph that she supposed he hated her and would like to drown her. "Ah no," said Ralph, "I keep my victims for a slower torture. And you'd be such an interesting one!" "Well, you do torture me; I may say that. But I shock all your prejudices; that's one comfort." "My prejudices? I haven't a prejudice to bless myself with. There's intellectual poverty for you." "The more shame to you; I've some delicious ones. Of course I spoil your flirtation, or whatever it is you call it, with your cousin; but I don't care for that, as I render her the service of drawing you out. She'll see how thin you are." "Ah, do draw me out!" Ralph exclaimed. "So few people will take the trouble." Miss Stackpole, in this undertaking, appeared to shrink from no effort; resorting largely, whenever the opportunity offered, to the natural expedient of interrogation. On the following day the weather was bad, and in the afternoon the young man, by way of providing indoor amusement, offered to show her the pictures. Henrietta strolled through the long gallery in his society, while he pointed out its principal ornaments and mentioned the painters and subjects. Miss Stackpole looked at the pictures in perfect silence, committing herself to no opinion, and Ralph was gratified by the fact that she delivered herself of none of the little ready-made ejaculations of delight of which the visitors to Gardencourt were so frequently lavish. This young lady indeed, to do her justice, was but little addicted to the use of conventional terms; there was something earnest and inventive in her tone, which at times, in its strained deliberation, suggested a person of high culture speaking a foreign language. Ralph Touchett subsequently learned that she had at one time officiated as art critic to a journal of the other world; but she appeared, in spite of this fact, to carry in her pocket none of the small change of admiration. Suddenly, just after he had called her attention to a charming Constable, she turned and looked at him as if he himself had been a picture. "Do you always spend your time like this?" she demanded. "I seldom spend it so agreeably." "Well, you know what I mean--without any regular occupation." "Ah," said Ralph, "I'm the idlest man living." Miss Stackpole directed her gaze to the Constable again, and Ralph bespoke her attention for a small Lancret hanging near it, which represented a gentleman in a pink doublet and hose and a ruff, leaning against the pedestal of the statue of a nymph in a garden and playing the guitar to two ladies seated on the grass. "That's my ideal of a regular occupation," he said. Miss Stackpole turned to him again, and, though her eyes had rested upon the picture, he saw she had missed the subject. She was thinking of something much more serious. "I don't see how you can reconcile it to your conscience." "My dear lady, I have no conscience!" "Well, I advise you to cultivate one. You'll need it the next time you go to America." "I shall probably never go again." "Are you ashamed to show yourself?" Ralph meditated with a mild smile. "I suppose that if one has no conscience one has no shame." "Well, you've got plenty of assurance," Henrietta declared. "Do you consider it right to give up your country?" "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 suppose that means that you've tried and been worsted. What do they think of you over here?" "They delight in me." "That's because you truckle to them." "Ah, set it down a little to my natural charm!" Ralph sighed. "I don't know anything about your natural charm. If you've got any charm it's quite unnatural. It's wholly acquired--or at least you've tried hard to acquire it, living over here. I don't say you've succeeded. It's a charm that I don't appreciate, anyway. Make yourself useful in some way, and then we'll talk about it." "Well, now, tell me what I shall do," said Ralph. "Go right home, to begin with." "Yes, I see. And then?" "Take right hold of something." "Well, now, what sort of thing?" "Anything you please, so long as you take hold. Some new idea, some big work." "Is it very difficult to take hold?" Ralph enquired. "Not if you put your heart into it." "Ah, my heart," said Ralph. "If it depends upon my heart--!" "Haven't you got a heart?" "I had one a few days ago, but I've lost it since." "You're not serious," Miss Stackpole remarked; "that's what's the matter with you." But for all this, in a day or two, she again permitted him to fix her attention and on the later occasion assigned a different cause to her mysterious perversity. "I know what's the matter with you, Mr. Touchett," she said. "You think you're too good to get married." "I thought so till I knew you, Miss Stackpole," Ralph answered; "and then I suddenly changed my mind." "Oh pshaw!" Henrietta groaned. "Then it seemed to me," said Ralph, "that I was not good enough." "It would improve you. Besides, it's your duty." "Ah," cried the young man, "one has so many duties! Is that a duty too?" "Of course it is--did you never know that before? It's every one's duty to get married." Ralph meditated a moment; he was disappointed. There was something in Miss Stackpole he had begun to like; it seemed to him that if she was not a charming woman she was at least a very good "sort." She was wanting in distinction, but, as Isabel had said, she was brave: she went into cages, she flourished lashes, like a 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. "There may be, but that's the principal thing. I must say I think it looks very exclusive, going round all alone, as if you thought no woman was good enough for you. Do you think you're better than any one else in the world? In America it's usual for people to marry." "If it's my duty," Ralph asked, "is it not, by analogy, yours as well?" Miss Stackpole's ocular surfaces unwinkingly caught the sun. "Have you the fond hope of finding a flaw in my reasoning? Of course I've as good a right to marry as any one else." "Well then," said Ralph, "I won't say it vexes me to see you single. It delights me rather." "You're not serious yet. You never will be." "Shall you not believe me to be so on the day I tell you I desire to give up the practice of going round alone?" Miss Stackpole looked at him for a moment in a manner which seemed to announce a reply that might technically be called encouraging. But to his great surprise this expression suddenly resolved itself into an appearance of alarm and even of resentment. "No, not even then," she answered dryly. After which she walked away. "I've not conceived a passion for your friend," Ralph said that evening to Isabel, "though we talked some time this morning about it." "And you said something she didn't like," the girl replied. Ralph stared. "Has she complained of me?" "She told me she thinks there's something very low in the tone of Europeans towards women." "Does she call me a European?" "One of the worst. She told me you had said to her something that an American never would have said. But she didn't repeat it." Ralph treated himself to a luxury of laughter. "She's an extraordinary combination. Did she think I was making love to her?" "No; I believe even Americans do that. But she apparently thought you mistook the intention of something she had said, and put an unkind construction on it." "I thought she was proposing marriage to me and I accepted her. Was that unkind?" Isabel smiled. "It was unkind to me. I don't want you to marry." "My dear cousin, what's one to do among you all?" Ralph demanded. "Miss Stackpole tells me it's my bounden duty, and that it's hers, in general, to see I do mine!" "She has a great sense of duty," said Isabel gravely. "She has indeed, and it's the motive of everything she says. That's what I like her for. She thinks it's unworthy of you to keep so many things to yourself. That's what she wanted to express. If you thought she was trying to--to attract you, you were very wrong." "It's true it was an odd way, but I did think she was trying to attract me. Forgive my depravity." "You're very conceited. She had no interested views, and never supposed you would think she had." "One must be very modest then to talk with such women," Ralph said humbly. "But it's a very strange type. She's too personal--considering that she expects other people not to be. She walks in without knocking at the door." "Yes," Isabel admitted, "she doesn't sufficiently recognise the existence of knockers; and indeed I'm not sure that she doesn't think them rather a pretentious ornament. She thinks one's door should stand ajar. But I persist in liking her." "I persist in thinking her too familiar," Ralph rejoined, naturally somewhat uncomfortable under the sense of having been doubly deceived in Miss Stackpole. "Well," said Isabel, smiling, "I'm afraid it's because she's rather vulgar that I like her." "She would be flattered by your reason!" "If I should tell her I wouldn't express it in that way. I should say it's because there's something of the 'people' in her." "What do you know about the people? and what does she, for that matter?" "She knows a great deal, and I know enough to feel that she's a kind of emanation of the great democracy--of the continent, the country, the nation. I don't say that she sums it all up, that would be too much to ask of her. But she suggests it; she vividly figures it." "You like her then for patriotic reasons. I'm afraid it is on those very grounds I object to her." "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. So long as I look at the Misses Molyneux they seem to me to answer a kind of ideal. Then Henrietta presents herself, and I'm straightway convinced by her; not so much in respect to herself as in respect to what masses behind her." "Ah, you mean the back view of her," Ralph suggested. "What she says is true," his cousin answered; "you'll never be serious. I like the great country stretching away beyond the rivers and across the prairies, blooming and smiling and spreading till it stops at the green Pacific! A strong, sweet, fresh odour seems to rise from it, and Henrietta--pardon my simile--has something of that odour in her garments." Isabel blushed a little as she concluded this speech, and the blush, together with the momentary ardour she had thrown into it, was so becoming to her that Ralph stood smiling at her for a moment after she had ceased speaking. "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!"

Isabel's friend, Henrietta Stackpole, the independent American journalist, arrives in England and visits at Gardencourt to see Isabel. She is described as a neat, plump person with a remarkably observant eye. Henrietta declares to the Touchetts that she would like to know if they consider themselves American or English, so that she will know how to talk to them. Ralph tells her that, in order to please her, he'll be an Englishman, or even a Turk. Isabel intercedes that Ralph is a cosmopolite. Isabel discovers that Henrietta is writing an article on Gardencourt, and tells her that she should not write about the place. Henrietta thinks they will be delighted afterwards, and Isabel protests that Henrietta has no sense of privacy. Henrietta blushes. Later, she asks Isabel if there is some other place she can describe, and Isabel tells her that she could give her a glimpse of Lord Warburton, and perhaps she can observe him. Henrietta finds it odd that Ralph spends his time so idly, without occupation. She asks how he can reconcile his idleness with his conscience, to which he responds, "I have no conscience. Henrietta proceeds to interrogate him on having abandoned his own country, and Ralph responds that one's country is not a choice, but only an "element of one's composition". Henrietta counsels Ralph to "take hold of something" -- that is, find something to work on. A few days later, Henrietta diagnoses Ralph: "I know what's the matter with you. you think you're too good to get married". Ralph jokes that he thought so until he met Henrietta. She thinks that getting married would improve him, and that it is his "duty". Ralph suspects Henrietta has ulterior motives, so he decides to test this by circuitously suggesting that he is proposing to Henrietta. Henrietta gives him a look of resentment. Isabel later tells Ralph that Henrietta thinks Europeans have a low tone towards women. Ralph notes that perhaps he treats her too personally. He thinks though, that she has the "smell of the Future"

summary

The day after her visit to Lockleigh she received a note from her friend Miss Stackpole--a note of which the envelope, exhibiting in conjunction the postmark of Liverpool and the neat calligraphy of the quick-fingered Henrietta, caused her some liveliness of emotion. "Here I am, my lovely friend," Miss Stackpole wrote; "I managed to get off at last. I decided only the night before I left New York--the Interviewer having come round to my figure. I put a few things into a bag, like a veteran journalist, and came down to the steamer in a street-car. Where are you and where can we meet? I suppose you're visiting at some castle or other and have already acquired the correct accent. Perhaps even you have married a lord; I almost hope you have, for I want some introductions to the first people and shall count on you for a few. The Interviewer wants some light on the nobility. My first impressions (of the people at large) are not rose-coloured; but I wish to talk them over with you, and you know that, whatever I am, at least I'm not superficial. I've also something very particular to tell you. Do appoint a meeting as quickly as you can; come to London (I should like so much to visit the sights with you) or else let me come to you, wherever you are. I will do so with pleasure; for you know everything interests me and I wish to see as much as possible of the inner life." Isabel judged best not to show this letter to her uncle; but she acquainted him with its purport, and, as she expected, he begged her instantly to assure Miss Stackpole, in his name, that he should be delighted to receive her at Gardencourt. "Though she's a literary lady," he said, "I suppose that, being an American, she won't show me up, as that other one did. She has seen others like me." "She has seen no other so delightful!" Isabel answered; but she was not altogether at ease about Henrietta's reproductive instincts, which belonged to that side of her friend's character which she regarded with least complacency. She wrote to Miss Stackpole, however, that she would be very welcome under Mr. Touchett's roof; and this alert young woman lost no time in announcing her prompt approach. She had gone up to London, and it was from that centre that she took the train for the station nearest to Gardencourt, where Isabel and Ralph were in waiting to receive her. "Shall I love her or shall I hate her?" Ralph asked while they moved along the platform. "Whichever you do will matter very little to her," said Isabel. "She doesn't care a straw what men think of her." "As a man I'm bound to dislike her then. She must be a kind of monster. Is she very ugly?" "No, she's decidedly pretty." "A female interviewer--a reporter in petticoats? I'm very curious to see her," Ralph conceded. "It's very easy to laugh at her but it is not easy to be as brave as she." "I should think not; crimes of violence and attacks on the person require more or less pluck. Do you suppose she'll interview me?" "Never in the world. She'll not think you of enough importance." "You'll see," said Ralph. "She'll send a description of us all, including Bunchie, to her newspaper." "I shall ask her not to," Isabel answered. "You think she's capable of it then?" "Perfectly." "And yet you've made her your bosom-friend?" "I've not made her my bosom-friend; but I like her in spite of her faults." "Ah well," said Ralph, "I'm afraid I shall dislike her in spite of her merits." "You'll probably fall in love with her at the end of three days." "And have my love-letters published in the Interviewer? Never!" cried the young man. The train presently arrived, and Miss Stackpole, promptly descending, proved, as Isabel had promised, quite delicately, even though rather provincially, fair. She was a neat, plump person, of medium stature, with a round face, a small mouth, a delicate complexion, a bunch of light brown ringlets at the back of her head and a peculiarly open, surprised-looking eye. The most striking point in her appearance was the remarkable fixedness of this organ, which rested without impudence or defiance, but as if in conscientious exercise of a natural right, upon every object it happened to encounter. It rested in this manner upon Ralph himself, a little arrested by Miss Stackpole's gracious and comfortable aspect, which hinted that it wouldn't be so easy as he had assumed to disapprove of her. 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. She answered the enquiries made of her by Isabel, however, and in which the young man ventured to join, with copious lucidity; and later, in the library at Gardencourt, when she had made the acquaintance of Mr. Touchett (his wife not having thought it necessary to appear) did more to give the measure of her confidence in her powers. "Well, I should like to know whether you consider yourselves American or English," she broke out. "If once I knew I could talk to you accordingly." "Talk to us anyhow and we shall be thankful," Ralph liberally answered. She fixed her eyes on him, and there was something in their character that reminded him of large polished buttons--buttons that might have fixed the elastic loops of some tense receptacle: he seemed to see the reflection of surrounding objects on the pupil. The expression of a button is not usually deemed human, but there was something in Miss Stackpole's gaze that made him, as a very modest man, feel vaguely embarrassed--less inviolate, more dishonoured, than he liked. This sensation, it must be added, after he had spent a day or two in her company, sensibly diminished, though it never wholly lapsed. "I don't suppose that you're going to undertake to persuade me that you're an American," she said. "To please you I'll be an Englishman, I'll be a Turk!" "Well, if you can change about that way you're very welcome," Miss Stackpole returned. "I'm sure you understand everything and that differences of nationality are no barrier to you," Ralph went on. Miss Stackpole gazed at him still. "Do you mean the foreign languages?" "The languages are nothing. I mean the spirit--the genius." "I'm not sure that I understand you," said the correspondent of the Interviewer; "but I expect I shall before I leave." "He's what's called a cosmopolite," Isabel suggested. "That means he's a little of everything and not much of any. I must say I think patriotism is like charity--it begins at home." "Ah, but where does home begin, Miss Stackpole?" Ralph enquired. "I don't know where it begins, but I know where it ends. It ended a long time before I got here." "Don't you like it over here?" asked Mr. Touchett with his aged, innocent voice. "Well, sir, I haven't quite made up my mind what ground I shall take. I feel a good deal cramped. I felt it on the journey from Liverpool to London." "Perhaps you were in a crowded carriage," Ralph suggested. "Yes, but it was crowded with friends--party of Americans whose acquaintance I had made upon the steamer; a lovely group from Little Rock, Arkansas. In spite of that I felt cramped--I felt something pressing upon me; I couldn't tell what it was. I felt at the very commencement as if I were not going to accord with the atmosphere. But I suppose I shall make my own atmosphere. That's the true way--then you can breathe. Your surroundings seem very attractive." "Ah, we too are a lovely group!" said Ralph. "Wait a little and you'll see." Miss Stackpole showed every disposition to wait and evidently was prepared to make a considerable stay at Gardencourt. She occupied herself in the mornings with literary labour; but in spite of this Isabel spent many hours with her friend, who, once her daily task performed, deprecated, in fact defied, isolation. Isabel speedily found occasion to desire her to desist from celebrating the charms of their common sojourn in print, having discovered, on the second morning of Miss Stackpole's visit, that she was engaged on a letter to the Interviewer, of which the title, in her exquisitely neat and legible hand (exactly that of the copybooks which our heroine remembered at school) was "Americans and Tudors--Glimpses of Gardencourt." Miss Stackpole, with the best conscience in the world, offered to read her letter to Isabel, who immediately put in her protest. "I don't think you ought to do that. I don't think you ought to describe the place." Henrietta gazed at her as usual. "Why, it's just what the people want, and it's a lovely place." "It's too lovely to be put in the newspapers, and it's not what my uncle wants." "Don't you believe that!" cried Henrietta. "They're always delighted afterwards." "My uncle won't be delighted--nor my cousin either. They'll consider it a breach of hospitality." Miss Stackpole showed no sense of confusion; she simply wiped her pen, very neatly, upon an elegant little implement which she kept for the purpose, and put away her manuscript. "Of course if you don't approve I won't do it; but I sacrifice a beautiful subject." "There are plenty of other subjects, there are subjects all round you. We'll take some drives; I'll show you some charming scenery." "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." "He would have died of it!" Isabel exclaimed. "Not of the severity, but of the publicity." "Well, I should have liked to kill him a little. And I should have delighted to do your uncle, who seems to me a much nobler type--the American faithful still. He's a grand old man; I don't see how he can object to my paying him honour." Isabel looked at her companion in much wonderment; it struck her as strange that a nature in which she found so much to esteem should break down so in spots. "My poor Henrietta," she said, "you've no sense of privacy." Henrietta coloured deeply, and for a moment her brilliant eyes were suffused, while Isabel found her more than ever inconsequent. "You do me great injustice," said Miss Stackpole with dignity. "I've never written a word about myself!" "I'm very sure of that; but it seems to me one should be modest for others also!" "Ah, that's very good!" cried Henrietta, seizing her pen again. "Just let me make a note of it and I'll put it in somewhere." she was a thoroughly good-natured woman, and half an hour later she was in as cheerful a mood as should have been looked for in a newspaper-lady in want of matter. "I've promised to do the social side," she said to Isabel; "and how can I do it unless I get ideas? If I can't describe this place don't you know some place I can describe?" Isabel promised she would bethink herself, and the next day, in conversation with her friend, she happened to mention her visit to Lord Warburton's ancient house. "Ah, you must take me there--that's just the place for me!" Miss Stackpole cried. "I must get a glimpse of the nobility." "I can't take you," said Isabel; "but Lord Warburton's coming here, and you'll have a chance to see him and observe him. Only if you intend to repeat his conversation I shall certainly give him warning." "Don't do that," her companion pleaded; "I want him to be natural." "An Englishman's never so natural as when he's holding his tongue," Isabel declared. It was not apparent, at the end of three days, that her cousin had, according to her prophecy, lost his heart to their visitor, though he had spent a good deal of time in her society. They strolled about the park together and sat under the trees, and in the afternoon, when it was delightful to float along the Thames, Miss Stackpole occupied a place in the boat in which hitherto Ralph had had but a single companion. Her presence proved somehow less irreducible to soft particles than Ralph had expected in the natural perturbation of his sense of the perfect solubility of that of his cousin; for the correspondent of the Interviewer prompted mirth in him, and he had long since decided that the crescendo of mirth should be the flower of his declining days. Henrietta, on her side, failed a little to justify Isabel's declaration with regard to her indifference to masculine opinion; for poor Ralph appeared to have presented himself to her as an irritating problem, which it would be almost immoral not to work out. "What does he do for a living?" she asked of Isabel the evening of her arrival. "Does he go round all day with his hands in his pockets?" "He does nothing," smiled Isabel; "he's a gentleman of large leisure." "Well, I call that a shame--when I have to work like a car-conductor," Miss Stackpole replied. "I should like to show him up." "He's in wretched health; he's quite unfit for work," Isabel urged. "Pshaw! don't you believe it. I work when I'm sick," cried her friend. Later, when she stepped into the boat on joining the water-party, she remarked to Ralph that she supposed he hated her and would like to drown her. "Ah no," said Ralph, "I keep my victims for a slower torture. And you'd be such an interesting one!" "Well, you do torture me; I may say that. But I shock all your prejudices; that's one comfort." "My prejudices? I haven't a prejudice to bless myself with. There's intellectual poverty for you." "The more shame to you; I've some delicious ones. Of course I spoil your flirtation, or whatever it is you call it, with your cousin; but I don't care for that, as I render her the service of drawing you out. She'll see how thin you are." "Ah, do draw me out!" Ralph exclaimed. "So few people will take the trouble." Miss Stackpole, in this undertaking, appeared to shrink from no effort; resorting largely, whenever the opportunity offered, to the natural expedient of interrogation. On the following day the weather was bad, and in the afternoon the young man, by way of providing indoor amusement, offered to show her the pictures. Henrietta strolled through the long gallery in his society, while he pointed out its principal ornaments and mentioned the painters and subjects. Miss Stackpole looked at the pictures in perfect silence, committing herself to no opinion, and Ralph was gratified by the fact that she delivered herself of none of the little ready-made ejaculations of delight of which the visitors to Gardencourt were so frequently lavish. This young lady indeed, to do her justice, was but little addicted to the use of conventional terms; there was something earnest and inventive in her tone, which at times, in its strained deliberation, suggested a person of high culture speaking a foreign language. Ralph Touchett subsequently learned that she had at one time officiated as art critic to a journal of the other world; but she appeared, in spite of this fact, to carry in her pocket none of the small change of admiration. Suddenly, just after he had called her attention to a charming Constable, she turned and looked at him as if he himself had been a picture. "Do you always spend your time like this?" she demanded. "I seldom spend it so agreeably." "Well, you know what I mean--without any regular occupation." "Ah," said Ralph, "I'm the idlest man living." Miss Stackpole directed her gaze to the Constable again, and Ralph bespoke her attention for a small Lancret hanging near it, which represented a gentleman in a pink doublet and hose and a ruff, leaning against the pedestal of the statue of a nymph in a garden and playing the guitar to two ladies seated on the grass. "That's my ideal of a regular occupation," he said. Miss Stackpole turned to him again, and, though her eyes had rested upon the picture, he saw she had missed the subject. She was thinking of something much more serious. "I don't see how you can reconcile it to your conscience." "My dear lady, I have no conscience!" "Well, I advise you to cultivate one. You'll need it the next time you go to America." "I shall probably never go again." "Are you ashamed to show yourself?" Ralph meditated with a mild smile. "I suppose that if one has no conscience one has no shame." "Well, you've got plenty of assurance," Henrietta declared. "Do you consider it right to give up your country?" "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 suppose that means that you've tried and been worsted. What do they think of you over here?" "They delight in me." "That's because you truckle to them." "Ah, set it down a little to my natural charm!" Ralph sighed. "I don't know anything about your natural charm. If you've got any charm it's quite unnatural. It's wholly acquired--or at least you've tried hard to acquire it, living over here. I don't say you've succeeded. It's a charm that I don't appreciate, anyway. Make yourself useful in some way, and then we'll talk about it." "Well, now, tell me what I shall do," said Ralph. "Go right home, to begin with." "Yes, I see. And then?" "Take right hold of something." "Well, now, what sort of thing?" "Anything you please, so long as you take hold. Some new idea, some big work." "Is it very difficult to take hold?" Ralph enquired. "Not if you put your heart into it." "Ah, my heart," said Ralph. "If it depends upon my heart--!" "Haven't you got a heart?" "I had one a few days ago, but I've lost it since." "You're not serious," Miss Stackpole remarked; "that's what's the matter with you." But for all this, in a day or two, she again permitted him to fix her attention and on the later occasion assigned a different cause to her mysterious perversity. "I know what's the matter with you, Mr. Touchett," she said. "You think you're too good to get married." "I thought so till I knew you, Miss Stackpole," Ralph answered; "and then I suddenly changed my mind." "Oh pshaw!" Henrietta groaned. "Then it seemed to me," said Ralph, "that I was not good enough." "It would improve you. Besides, it's your duty." "Ah," cried the young man, "one has so many duties! Is that a duty too?" "Of course it is--did you never know that before? It's every one's duty to get married." Ralph meditated a moment; he was disappointed. There was something in Miss Stackpole he had begun to like; it seemed to him that if she was not a charming woman she was at least a very good "sort." She was wanting in distinction, but, as Isabel had said, she was brave: she went into cages, she flourished lashes, like a 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. "There may be, but that's the principal thing. I must say I think it looks very exclusive, going round all alone, as if you thought no woman was good enough for you. Do you think you're better than any one else in the world? In America it's usual for people to marry." "If it's my duty," Ralph asked, "is it not, by analogy, yours as well?" Miss Stackpole's ocular surfaces unwinkingly caught the sun. "Have you the fond hope of finding a flaw in my reasoning? Of course I've as good a right to marry as any one else." "Well then," said Ralph, "I won't say it vexes me to see you single. It delights me rather." "You're not serious yet. You never will be." "Shall you not believe me to be so on the day I tell you I desire to give up the practice of going round alone?" Miss Stackpole looked at him for a moment in a manner which seemed to announce a reply that might technically be called encouraging. But to his great surprise this expression suddenly resolved itself into an appearance of alarm and even of resentment. "No, not even then," she answered dryly. After which she walked away. "I've not conceived a passion for your friend," Ralph said that evening to Isabel, "though we talked some time this morning about it." "And you said something she didn't like," the girl replied. Ralph stared. "Has she complained of me?" "She told me she thinks there's something very low in the tone of Europeans towards women." "Does she call me a European?" "One of the worst. She told me you had said to her something that an American never would have said. But she didn't repeat it." Ralph treated himself to a luxury of laughter. "She's an extraordinary combination. Did she think I was making love to her?" "No; I believe even Americans do that. But she apparently thought you mistook the intention of something she had said, and put an unkind construction on it." "I thought she was proposing marriage to me and I accepted her. Was that unkind?" Isabel smiled. "It was unkind to me. I don't want you to marry." "My dear cousin, what's one to do among you all?" Ralph demanded. "Miss Stackpole tells me it's my bounden duty, and that it's hers, in general, to see I do mine!" "She has a great sense of duty," said Isabel gravely. "She has indeed, and it's the motive of everything she says. That's what I like her for. She thinks it's unworthy of you to keep so many things to yourself. That's what she wanted to express. If you thought she was trying to--to attract you, you were very wrong." "It's true it was an odd way, but I did think she was trying to attract me. Forgive my depravity." "You're very conceited. She had no interested views, and never supposed you would think she had." "One must be very modest then to talk with such women," Ralph said humbly. "But it's a very strange type. She's too personal--considering that she expects other people not to be. She walks in without knocking at the door." "Yes," Isabel admitted, "she doesn't sufficiently recognise the existence of knockers; and indeed I'm not sure that she doesn't think them rather a pretentious ornament. She thinks one's door should stand ajar. But I persist in liking her." "I persist in thinking her too familiar," Ralph rejoined, naturally somewhat uncomfortable under the sense of having been doubly deceived in Miss Stackpole. "Well," said Isabel, smiling, "I'm afraid it's because she's rather vulgar that I like her." "She would be flattered by your reason!" "If I should tell her I wouldn't express it in that way. I should say it's because there's something of the 'people' in her." "What do you know about the people? and what does she, for that matter?" "She knows a great deal, and I know enough to feel that she's a kind of emanation of the great democracy--of the continent, the country, the nation. I don't say that she sums it all up, that would be too much to ask of her. But she suggests it; she vividly figures it." "You like her then for patriotic reasons. I'm afraid it is on those very grounds I object to her." "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. So long as I look at the Misses Molyneux they seem to me to answer a kind of ideal. Then Henrietta presents herself, and I'm straightway convinced by her; not so much in respect to herself as in respect to what masses behind her." "Ah, you mean the back view of her," Ralph suggested. "What she says is true," his cousin answered; "you'll never be serious. I like the great country stretching away beyond the rivers and across the prairies, blooming and smiling and spreading till it stops at the green Pacific! A strong, sweet, fresh odour seems to rise from it, and Henrietta--pardon my simile--has something of that odour in her garments." Isabel blushed a little as she concluded this speech, and the blush, together with the momentary ardour she had thrown into it, was so becoming to her that Ralph stood smiling at her for a moment after she had ceased speaking. "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!"

Ralph and Henrietta do not seem to really get along -- perhaps they might remind us of friends in a TV sitcom who always make fun of each other, never see eye to eye, yet nevertheless get something out of each other's company. Ralph finds it fun to evade straightforward answers to Henrietta's questions about his own identity and function in the world, and Henrietta persists in pinning him down with one. Ralph seems to represent Europeans here -- a sick and idle, but cultured, person -- and Henrietta is the American of the "Future" who is bold, persistent and hard working. This is representative of Henry James' well-known "American Theme" in which Americans arrive in Europe, and seem to offer something new to a decadent culture. But what is it, exactly that they offer? Henrietta seems to offer straightforward, puritan values. In Chapter 12, we have what will be seen as her first great action, her refusal of Lord Warburton's marriage proposal. For any American without a fortune, this would have been seen as a great opportunity: marrying a rich, well respected Lord from England. Why does Isabel reject his marriage proposal? She tells him she has nothing to give: she could mean this in a financial sense, but she could also mean that she believes she must develop as an individual, original and independent person in order to enter into a marriage. She furthermore believes herself to be capable of an even greater opportunity: does this mean she believes another man of greater status will propose to her? Or does she think she will be able to occupy herself in life in some other way? The great idea upon which her ambition settles is unclear. What could it mean to engage in "the free exploration of life" ? It would appear that Isabel's great idea is to assert some sort of independent freedom of character, but the means of expression of such freedom does not seem to be readily available to her. It does not seem to lie in any possible occupation she could have, especially because she is not a very practical person, but rather a theoretical one. It does not seem to lie in her social relations to others, because this seems to mean that she will have to submit to a particular social system thereby losing her freedom. This leads to a more existential question that is being posed in the book: What is freedom? Can it be asserted in any other way, other than negatively? Meanwhile, the fact that Caspar Goodwood has arrived at the same time that Lord Warburton has decided to propose forms something of a climax of the first section of the novel. Isabel is presented with two possible, concrete realizations for her "idea" as to what she will do in life, and she rejects them both, although she rejects them for opposite reasons. One man is not at all likeable, and not at all her ideal; the other is perfectly an ideal of a person, and she likes him perfectly well, but she intuitively feels that she does not want to marry him. Her idea thus assumes expression only negatively here. In Chapter 14, we get some more exploration into Isabel's motivations for rejecting Lord Warburton's marriage proposal. She claims that she does not want to separate herself from "life" - from the usual chances that most people suffer. She seems to have a lust for a vague notion of experience, and she believes such experience cannot be found when one is protected from dangers through marriage. Mrs. Touchett's simple declaration ironically is the most adequate for describing Isabel's rejection -- she does think that she can "do something better." However, Mrs. Touchett is also a character that is not depicted in a flattering light; she is not the kind of person who can explore deep psychological motivations and intimate emotions. Thus we are presented with the contradiction that Isabel's "idea" on the one hand can be described adequately in a superficial manner, but that it nevertheless breeds a lot of psychological interest and vague emotions.

analysis

He took a resolve after this not to misinterpret her words even when Miss Stackpole appeared to strike the personal note most strongly. He bethought himself that persons, in her view, were simple and homogeneous organisms, and that he, for his own part, was too perverted a representative of the nature of man to have a right to deal with her in strict reciprocity. He carried out his resolve with a great deal of tact, and the young lady found in renewed contact with him no obstacle to the exercise of her genius for unshrinking enquiry, the general application of her confidence. Her situation at Gardencourt therefore, appreciated as we have seen her to be by Isabel and full of appreciation herself of that free play of intelligence which, to her sense, rendered Isabel's character a sister-spirit, and of the easy venerableness of Mr. Touchett, whose noble tone, as she said, met with her full approval--her situation at Gardencourt would have been perfectly comfortable had she not conceived an irresistible mistrust of the little lady for whom she had at first supposed herself obliged to "allow" as mistress of the house. She presently discovered, in truth, that this obligation was of the lightest and that Mrs. Touchett cared very little how Miss Stackpole behaved. Mrs. Touchett had defined her to Isabel as both an adventuress and a bore--adventuresses usually giving one more of a thrill; she had expressed some surprise at her niece's having selected such a friend, yet had immediately added that she knew Isabel's friends were her own affair and that she had never undertaken to like them all or to restrict the girl to those she liked. "If you could see none but the people I like, my dear, you'd have a very small society," Mrs. Touchett frankly admitted; "and I don't think I like any man or woman well enough to recommend them to you. When it comes to recommending it's a serious affair. I don't like Miss Stackpole--everything about her displeases me; she talks so much too loud and looks at one as if one wanted to look at her--which one doesn't. I'm sure she has lived all her life in a boarding-house, and I detest the manners and the liberties of such places. If you ask me if I prefer my own manners, which you doubtless think very bad, I'll tell you that I prefer them immensely. Miss Stackpole knows I detest boarding-house civilisation, and she detests me for detesting it, because she thinks it the highest in the world. She'd like Gardencourt a great deal better if it were a boarding-house. For me, I find it almost too much of one! We shall never get on together therefore, and there's no use trying." Mrs. Touchett was right in guessing that Henrietta disapproved of her, but she had not quite put her finger on the reason. A day or two after Miss Stackpole's arrival she had made some invidious reflexions on American hotels, which excited a vein of counter-argument on the part of the correspondent of the Interviewer, who in the exercise of her profession had acquainted herself, in the western world, with every form of caravansary. Henrietta expressed the opinion that American hotels were the best in the world, and Mrs. Touchett, fresh from a renewed struggle with them, recorded a conviction that they were the worst. Ralph, with his experimental geniality, suggested, by way of healing the breach, that the truth lay between the two extremes and that the establishments in question ought to be described as fair middling. This contribution to the discussion, however, Miss Stackpole rejected with scorn. Middling indeed! If they were not the best in the world they were the worst, but there was nothing middling about an American hotel. "We judge from different points of view, evidently," said Mrs. Touchett. "I like to be treated as an individual; you like to be treated as a 'party.'" "I don't know what you mean," Henrietta replied. "I like to be treated as an American lady." "Poor American ladies!" cried Mrs. Touchett with a laugh. "They're the slaves of slaves." "They're the companions of freemen," Henrietta retorted. "They're the companions of their servants--the Irish chambermaid and the negro waiter. They share their work." "Do you call the domestics in an American household 'slaves'?" Miss Stackpole enquired. "If that's the way you desire to treat them, no wonder you don't like America." "If you've not good servants you're miserable," Mrs. Touchett serenely said. "They're very bad in America, but I've five perfect ones in Florence." "I don't see what you want with five," Henrietta couldn't help observing. "I don't think I should like to see five persons surrounding me in that menial position." "I like them in that position better than in some others," proclaimed Mrs. Touchett with much meaning. "Should you like me better if I were your butler, dear?" her husband asked. "I don't think I should: you wouldn't at all have the tenue." "The companions of freemen--I like that, Miss Stackpole," said Ralph. "It's a beautiful description." "When I said freemen I didn't mean you, sir!" And this was the only reward that Ralph got for his compliment. Miss Stackpole was baffled; she evidently thought there was something treasonable in Mrs. Touchett's appreciation of a class which she privately judged to be a mysterious survival of feudalism. It was perhaps because her mind was oppressed with this image that she suffered some days to elapse before she took occasion to say to Isabel: "My dear friend, I wonder if you're growing faithless." "Faithless? Faithless to you, Henrietta?" "No, that would be a great pain; but it's not that." "Faithless to my country then?" "Ah, that I hope will never be. When I wrote to you from Liverpool I said I had something particular to tell you. You've never asked me what it is. Is it because you've suspected?" "Suspected what? As a rule I don't think I suspect," said Isabel. "I remember now that phrase in your letter, but I confess I had forgotten it. What have you to tell me?" Henrietta looked disappointed, and her steady gaze betrayed it. "You don't ask that right--as if you thought it important. You're changed--you're thinking of other things." "Tell me what you mean, and I'll think of that." "Will you really think of it? That's what I wish to be sure of." "I've not much control of my thoughts, but I'll do my best," said Isabel. Henrietta gazed at her, in silence, for a period which tried Isabel's patience, so that our heroine added at last: "Do you mean that you're going to be married?" "Not till I've seen Europe!" said Miss Stackpole. "What are you laughing at?" she went on. "What I mean is that Mr. Goodwood came out in the steamer with me." "Ah!" Isabel responded. "You say that right. I had a good deal of talk with him; he has come after you." "Did he tell you so?" "No, he told me nothing; that's how I knew it," said Henrietta cleverly. "He said very little about you, but I spoke of you a good deal." Isabel waited. At the mention of Mr. Goodwood's name she had turned a little pale. "I'm very sorry you did that," she observed at last. "It was a pleasure to me, and I liked the way he listened. I could have talked a long time to such a listener; he was so quiet, so intense; he drank it all in." "What did you say about me?" Isabel asked. "I said you were on the whole the finest creature I know." "I'm very sorry for that. He thinks too well of me already; he oughtn't to be encouraged." "He's dying for a little encouragement. I see his face now, and his earnest absorbed look while I talked. I never saw an ugly man look so handsome." "He's very simple-minded," said 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." "You don't say that as if you were sure." Isabel gave rather a cold smile. "I shall say it better to Mr. Goodwood himself." "He'll soon give you a chance," said Henrietta. Isabel offered no answer to this assertion, which her companion made with an air of great confidence. "He'll find you changed," the latter pursued. "You've been affected by your new surroundings." "Very likely. I'm affected by everything." "By everything but Mr. Goodwood!" Miss Stackpole exclaimed with a slightly harsh hilarity. Isabel failed even to smile back and in a moment she said: "Did he ask you to speak to me?" "Not in so many words. But his eyes asked it--and his handshake, when he bade me good-bye." "Thank you for doing so." And Isabel turned away. "Yes, you're changed; you've got new ideas over here," her friend continued. "I hope so," said Isabel; "one should get as many new ideas as possible." "Yes; but they shouldn't interfere with the old ones when the old ones have been the right ones." Isabel turned about again. "If you mean that I had any idea with regard to Mr. Goodwood--!" But she faltered before her friend's implacable glitter. "My dear child, you certainly encouraged him." Isabel made for the moment as if to deny this charge; instead of which, however, she presently answered: "It's very true. I did encourage him." And then she asked if her companion had learned from Mr. Goodwood what he intended to do. It was a concession to her curiosity, for she disliked discussing the subject and found Henrietta wanting in delicacy. "I asked him, and he said he meant to do nothing," Miss Stackpole answered. "But I don't believe that; he's not a man to do nothing. He is a man of high, bold action. Whatever happens to him he'll always do something, and whatever he does will always be right." "I quite believe that." Henrietta might be wanting in delicacy, but it touched the girl, all the same, to hear this declaration. "Ah, you do care for him!" her visitor rang out. "Whatever he does will always be right," Isabel repeated. "When a man's of that infallible mould what does it matter to him what one feels?" "It may not matter to him, but it matters to one's self." "Ah, what it matters to me--that's not what we're discussing," said Isabel with a cold smile. This time her companion was grave. "Well, I don't care; you have changed. You're not the girl you were a few short weeks ago, and Mr. Goodwood will see it. I expect him here any day." "I hope he'll hate me then," said Isabel. "I believe you hope it about as much as I believe him capable of it." To this observation our heroine made no return; she was absorbed in the alarm given her by Henrietta's intimation that Caspar Goodwood would present himself at Gardencourt. She pretended to herself, however, that she thought the event impossible, and, later, she communicated her disbelief to her friend. For the next forty-eight hours, nevertheless, she stood prepared to hear the young man's name announced. The feeling pressed upon her; it made the air sultry, as if there were to be a change of weather; and the weather, socially speaking, had been so agreeable during Isabel's stay at Gardencourt that any change would be for the worse. Her suspense indeed was dissipated the second day. She had walked into the park in company with the sociable Bunchie, and after strolling about for some time, in a manner at once listless and restless, had seated herself on a garden-bench, within sight of the house, beneath a spreading beech, where, in a white dress ornamented with black ribbons, she formed among the flickering shadows a graceful and harmonious image. She entertained herself for some moments with talking to the little terrier, as to whom the proposal of an ownership divided with her cousin had been applied as impartially as possible--as impartially as Bunchie's own somewhat fickle and inconstant sympathies would allow. But she was notified for the first time, on this occasion, of the finite character of Bunchie's intellect; hitherto she had been mainly struck with its extent. It seemed to her at last that she would do well to take a book; formerly, when heavy-hearted, she had been able, with the help of some well-chosen volume, to transfer the seat of consciousness to the organ of pure reason. Of late, it was not to be denied, literature had seemed a fading light, and even after she had reminded herself that her uncle's library was provided with a complete set of those authors which no gentleman's collection should be without, she sat motionless and empty-handed, her eyes bent on the cool green turf of the lawn. Her meditations were presently interrupted by the arrival of a servant who handed her a letter. The letter bore the London postmark and was addressed in a hand she knew--that came into her vision, already so held by him, with the vividness of the writer's voice or his face. This document proved short and may be given entire. MY DEAR MISS ARCHER--I don't know whether you will have heard of my coming to England, but even if you have not it will scarcely be a surprise to you. You will remember that when you gave me my dismissal at Albany, three months ago, I did not accept it. I protested against it. You in fact appeared to accept my protest and to admit that I had the right on my side. I had come to see you with the hope that you would let me bring you over to my conviction; my reasons for entertaining this hope had been of the best. But you disappointed it; I found you changed, and you were able to give me no reason for the change. You admitted that you were unreasonable, and it was the only concession you would make; but it was a very cheap one, because that's not your character. No, you are not, and you never will be, arbitrary or capricious. Therefore it is that I believe you will let me see you again. You told me that I'm not disagreeable to you, and I believe it; for I don't see why that should be. I shall always think of you; I shall never think of any one else. I came to England simply because you are here; I couldn't stay at home after you had gone: I hated the country because you were not in it. If I like this country at present it is only because it holds you. I have been to England before, but have never enjoyed it much. May I not come and see you for half an hour? This at present is the dearest wish of yours faithfully, CASPAR GOODWOOD. Isabel read this missive with such deep attention that she had not perceived an approaching tread on the soft grass. Looking up, however, as she mechanically folded it she saw Lord Warburton standing before her.

Henrietta gets along well at Gardencourt mostly, except that she begins to mistrust Mrs. Touchett. Mrs. Touchett thinks that Henrietta is both a bore and an adventuress. She detests her manners. Mrs. Touchett tells Henrietta: "We judge from different points of view, evidently. I like to be treated as an individual; you like to be treated as a 'party'". In a private moment, Henrietta tells Isabel that Caspar Goodwood came to see her for news about Isabel. Isabel thinks he is simpleminded, and not ugly. Henrietta tells Isabel that Caspar Goodwood is dying for encouragement, but she also notes that Isabel is affected by everything but Mr. Goodwood. She tells Isabel that she shouldn't let her new ideas affect her old ones. Basically Henrietta seems to hope that Isabel will marry Mr. Goodwood, and reminds Isabel that she has already encouraged him that he will be successful if he proposes. Isabel recognizes that Mr. Goodwood is a man of action, the type to "do something". Henrietta tells Isabel that Mr. Goodwood will arrive in a few days. Isabel is alarmed by the news. For the next few days she is in a state of ominous foreboding. One day in the garden she receives a letter from Mr. Goodwood. In the letter, Caspar Goodwood reminds Isabel that she had "dismissed" him three months earlier when they last saw each other, but that he had refused to accept this, believing her character was not as arbitrary as she was presenting it as. He has arrived in England because she is there. He asks to come see her in half an hour. As Isabel is reading the letter, Lord Warburton appears

summary

He took a resolve after this not to misinterpret her words even when Miss Stackpole appeared to strike the personal note most strongly. He bethought himself that persons, in her view, were simple and homogeneous organisms, and that he, for his own part, was too perverted a representative of the nature of man to have a right to deal with her in strict reciprocity. He carried out his resolve with a great deal of tact, and the young lady found in renewed contact with him no obstacle to the exercise of her genius for unshrinking enquiry, the general application of her confidence. Her situation at Gardencourt therefore, appreciated as we have seen her to be by Isabel and full of appreciation herself of that free play of intelligence which, to her sense, rendered Isabel's character a sister-spirit, and of the easy venerableness of Mr. Touchett, whose noble tone, as she said, met with her full approval--her situation at Gardencourt would have been perfectly comfortable had she not conceived an irresistible mistrust of the little lady for whom she had at first supposed herself obliged to "allow" as mistress of the house. She presently discovered, in truth, that this obligation was of the lightest and that Mrs. Touchett cared very little how Miss Stackpole behaved. Mrs. Touchett had defined her to Isabel as both an adventuress and a bore--adventuresses usually giving one more of a thrill; she had expressed some surprise at her niece's having selected such a friend, yet had immediately added that she knew Isabel's friends were her own affair and that she had never undertaken to like them all or to restrict the girl to those she liked. "If you could see none but the people I like, my dear, you'd have a very small society," Mrs. Touchett frankly admitted; "and I don't think I like any man or woman well enough to recommend them to you. When it comes to recommending it's a serious affair. I don't like Miss Stackpole--everything about her displeases me; she talks so much too loud and looks at one as if one wanted to look at her--which one doesn't. I'm sure she has lived all her life in a boarding-house, and I detest the manners and the liberties of such places. If you ask me if I prefer my own manners, which you doubtless think very bad, I'll tell you that I prefer them immensely. Miss Stackpole knows I detest boarding-house civilisation, and she detests me for detesting it, because she thinks it the highest in the world. She'd like Gardencourt a great deal better if it were a boarding-house. For me, I find it almost too much of one! We shall never get on together therefore, and there's no use trying." Mrs. Touchett was right in guessing that Henrietta disapproved of her, but she had not quite put her finger on the reason. A day or two after Miss Stackpole's arrival she had made some invidious reflexions on American hotels, which excited a vein of counter-argument on the part of the correspondent of the Interviewer, who in the exercise of her profession had acquainted herself, in the western world, with every form of caravansary. Henrietta expressed the opinion that American hotels were the best in the world, and Mrs. Touchett, fresh from a renewed struggle with them, recorded a conviction that they were the worst. Ralph, with his experimental geniality, suggested, by way of healing the breach, that the truth lay between the two extremes and that the establishments in question ought to be described as fair middling. This contribution to the discussion, however, Miss Stackpole rejected with scorn. Middling indeed! If they were not the best in the world they were the worst, but there was nothing middling about an American hotel. "We judge from different points of view, evidently," said Mrs. Touchett. "I like to be treated as an individual; you like to be treated as a 'party.'" "I don't know what you mean," Henrietta replied. "I like to be treated as an American lady." "Poor American ladies!" cried Mrs. Touchett with a laugh. "They're the slaves of slaves." "They're the companions of freemen," Henrietta retorted. "They're the companions of their servants--the Irish chambermaid and the negro waiter. They share their work." "Do you call the domestics in an American household 'slaves'?" Miss Stackpole enquired. "If that's the way you desire to treat them, no wonder you don't like America." "If you've not good servants you're miserable," Mrs. Touchett serenely said. "They're very bad in America, but I've five perfect ones in Florence." "I don't see what you want with five," Henrietta couldn't help observing. "I don't think I should like to see five persons surrounding me in that menial position." "I like them in that position better than in some others," proclaimed Mrs. Touchett with much meaning. "Should you like me better if I were your butler, dear?" her husband asked. "I don't think I should: you wouldn't at all have the tenue." "The companions of freemen--I like that, Miss Stackpole," said Ralph. "It's a beautiful description." "When I said freemen I didn't mean you, sir!" And this was the only reward that Ralph got for his compliment. Miss Stackpole was baffled; she evidently thought there was something treasonable in Mrs. Touchett's appreciation of a class which she privately judged to be a mysterious survival of feudalism. It was perhaps because her mind was oppressed with this image that she suffered some days to elapse before she took occasion to say to Isabel: "My dear friend, I wonder if you're growing faithless." "Faithless? Faithless to you, Henrietta?" "No, that would be a great pain; but it's not that." "Faithless to my country then?" "Ah, that I hope will never be. When I wrote to you from Liverpool I said I had something particular to tell you. You've never asked me what it is. Is it because you've suspected?" "Suspected what? As a rule I don't think I suspect," said Isabel. "I remember now that phrase in your letter, but I confess I had forgotten it. What have you to tell me?" Henrietta looked disappointed, and her steady gaze betrayed it. "You don't ask that right--as if you thought it important. You're changed--you're thinking of other things." "Tell me what you mean, and I'll think of that." "Will you really think of it? That's what I wish to be sure of." "I've not much control of my thoughts, but I'll do my best," said Isabel. Henrietta gazed at her, in silence, for a period which tried Isabel's patience, so that our heroine added at last: "Do you mean that you're going to be married?" "Not till I've seen Europe!" said Miss Stackpole. "What are you laughing at?" she went on. "What I mean is that Mr. Goodwood came out in the steamer with me." "Ah!" Isabel responded. "You say that right. I had a good deal of talk with him; he has come after you." "Did he tell you so?" "No, he told me nothing; that's how I knew it," said Henrietta cleverly. "He said very little about you, but I spoke of you a good deal." Isabel waited. At the mention of Mr. Goodwood's name she had turned a little pale. "I'm very sorry you did that," she observed at last. "It was a pleasure to me, and I liked the way he listened. I could have talked a long time to such a listener; he was so quiet, so intense; he drank it all in." "What did you say about me?" Isabel asked. "I said you were on the whole the finest creature I know." "I'm very sorry for that. He thinks too well of me already; he oughtn't to be encouraged." "He's dying for a little encouragement. I see his face now, and his earnest absorbed look while I talked. I never saw an ugly man look so handsome." "He's very simple-minded," said 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." "You don't say that as if you were sure." Isabel gave rather a cold smile. "I shall say it better to Mr. Goodwood himself." "He'll soon give you a chance," said Henrietta. Isabel offered no answer to this assertion, which her companion made with an air of great confidence. "He'll find you changed," the latter pursued. "You've been affected by your new surroundings." "Very likely. I'm affected by everything." "By everything but Mr. Goodwood!" Miss Stackpole exclaimed with a slightly harsh hilarity. Isabel failed even to smile back and in a moment she said: "Did he ask you to speak to me?" "Not in so many words. But his eyes asked it--and his handshake, when he bade me good-bye." "Thank you for doing so." And Isabel turned away. "Yes, you're changed; you've got new ideas over here," her friend continued. "I hope so," said Isabel; "one should get as many new ideas as possible." "Yes; but they shouldn't interfere with the old ones when the old ones have been the right ones." Isabel turned about again. "If you mean that I had any idea with regard to Mr. Goodwood--!" But she faltered before her friend's implacable glitter. "My dear child, you certainly encouraged him." Isabel made for the moment as if to deny this charge; instead of which, however, she presently answered: "It's very true. I did encourage him." And then she asked if her companion had learned from Mr. Goodwood what he intended to do. It was a concession to her curiosity, for she disliked discussing the subject and found Henrietta wanting in delicacy. "I asked him, and he said he meant to do nothing," Miss Stackpole answered. "But I don't believe that; he's not a man to do nothing. He is a man of high, bold action. Whatever happens to him he'll always do something, and whatever he does will always be right." "I quite believe that." Henrietta might be wanting in delicacy, but it touched the girl, all the same, to hear this declaration. "Ah, you do care for him!" her visitor rang out. "Whatever he does will always be right," Isabel repeated. "When a man's of that infallible mould what does it matter to him what one feels?" "It may not matter to him, but it matters to one's self." "Ah, what it matters to me--that's not what we're discussing," said Isabel with a cold smile. This time her companion was grave. "Well, I don't care; you have changed. You're not the girl you were a few short weeks ago, and Mr. Goodwood will see it. I expect him here any day." "I hope he'll hate me then," said Isabel. "I believe you hope it about as much as I believe him capable of it." To this observation our heroine made no return; she was absorbed in the alarm given her by Henrietta's intimation that Caspar Goodwood would present himself at Gardencourt. She pretended to herself, however, that she thought the event impossible, and, later, she communicated her disbelief to her friend. For the next forty-eight hours, nevertheless, she stood prepared to hear the young man's name announced. The feeling pressed upon her; it made the air sultry, as if there were to be a change of weather; and the weather, socially speaking, had been so agreeable during Isabel's stay at Gardencourt that any change would be for the worse. Her suspense indeed was dissipated the second day. She had walked into the park in company with the sociable Bunchie, and after strolling about for some time, in a manner at once listless and restless, had seated herself on a garden-bench, within sight of the house, beneath a spreading beech, where, in a white dress ornamented with black ribbons, she formed among the flickering shadows a graceful and harmonious image. She entertained herself for some moments with talking to the little terrier, as to whom the proposal of an ownership divided with her cousin had been applied as impartially as possible--as impartially as Bunchie's own somewhat fickle and inconstant sympathies would allow. But she was notified for the first time, on this occasion, of the finite character of Bunchie's intellect; hitherto she had been mainly struck with its extent. It seemed to her at last that she would do well to take a book; formerly, when heavy-hearted, she had been able, with the help of some well-chosen volume, to transfer the seat of consciousness to the organ of pure reason. Of late, it was not to be denied, literature had seemed a fading light, and even after she had reminded herself that her uncle's library was provided with a complete set of those authors which no gentleman's collection should be without, she sat motionless and empty-handed, her eyes bent on the cool green turf of the lawn. Her meditations were presently interrupted by the arrival of a servant who handed her a letter. The letter bore the London postmark and was addressed in a hand she knew--that came into her vision, already so held by him, with the vividness of the writer's voice or his face. This document proved short and may be given entire. MY DEAR MISS ARCHER--I don't know whether you will have heard of my coming to England, but even if you have not it will scarcely be a surprise to you. You will remember that when you gave me my dismissal at Albany, three months ago, I did not accept it. I protested against it. You in fact appeared to accept my protest and to admit that I had the right on my side. I had come to see you with the hope that you would let me bring you over to my conviction; my reasons for entertaining this hope had been of the best. But you disappointed it; I found you changed, and you were able to give me no reason for the change. You admitted that you were unreasonable, and it was the only concession you would make; but it was a very cheap one, because that's not your character. No, you are not, and you never will be, arbitrary or capricious. Therefore it is that I believe you will let me see you again. You told me that I'm not disagreeable to you, and I believe it; for I don't see why that should be. I shall always think of you; I shall never think of any one else. I came to England simply because you are here; I couldn't stay at home after you had gone: I hated the country because you were not in it. If I like this country at present it is only because it holds you. I have been to England before, but have never enjoyed it much. May I not come and see you for half an hour? This at present is the dearest wish of yours faithfully, CASPAR GOODWOOD. Isabel read this missive with such deep attention that she had not perceived an approaching tread on the soft grass. Looking up, however, as she mechanically folded it she saw Lord Warburton standing before her.

Ralph and Henrietta do not seem to really get along -- perhaps they might remind us of friends in a TV sitcom who always make fun of each other, never see eye to eye, yet nevertheless get something out of each other's company. Ralph finds it fun to evade straightforward answers to Henrietta's questions about his own identity and function in the world, and Henrietta persists in pinning him down with one. Ralph seems to represent Europeans here -- a sick and idle, but cultured, person -- and Henrietta is the American of the "Future" who is bold, persistent and hard working. This is representative of Henry James' well-known "American Theme" in which Americans arrive in Europe, and seem to offer something new to a decadent culture. But what is it, exactly that they offer? Henrietta seems to offer straightforward, puritan values. In Chapter 12, we have what will be seen as her first great action, her refusal of Lord Warburton's marriage proposal. For any American without a fortune, this would have been seen as a great opportunity: marrying a rich, well respected Lord from England. Why does Isabel reject his marriage proposal? She tells him she has nothing to give: she could mean this in a financial sense, but she could also mean that she believes she must develop as an individual, original and independent person in order to enter into a marriage. She furthermore believes herself to be capable of an even greater opportunity: does this mean she believes another man of greater status will propose to her? Or does she think she will be able to occupy herself in life in some other way? The great idea upon which her ambition settles is unclear. What could it mean to engage in "the free exploration of life" ? It would appear that Isabel's great idea is to assert some sort of independent freedom of character, but the means of expression of such freedom does not seem to be readily available to her. It does not seem to lie in any possible occupation she could have, especially because she is not a very practical person, but rather a theoretical one. It does not seem to lie in her social relations to others, because this seems to mean that she will have to submit to a particular social system thereby losing her freedom. This leads to a more existential question that is being posed in the book: What is freedom? Can it be asserted in any other way, other than negatively? Meanwhile, the fact that Caspar Goodwood has arrived at the same time that Lord Warburton has decided to propose forms something of a climax of the first section of the novel. Isabel is presented with two possible, concrete realizations for her "idea" as to what she will do in life, and she rejects them both, although she rejects them for opposite reasons. One man is not at all likeable, and not at all her ideal; the other is perfectly an ideal of a person, and she likes him perfectly well, but she intuitively feels that she does not want to marry him. Her idea thus assumes expression only negatively here. In Chapter 14, we get some more exploration into Isabel's motivations for rejecting Lord Warburton's marriage proposal. She claims that she does not want to separate herself from "life" - from the usual chances that most people suffer. She seems to have a lust for a vague notion of experience, and she believes such experience cannot be found when one is protected from dangers through marriage. Mrs. Touchett's simple declaration ironically is the most adequate for describing Isabel's rejection -- she does think that she can "do something better." However, Mrs. Touchett is also a character that is not depicted in a flattering light; she is not the kind of person who can explore deep psychological motivations and intimate emotions. Thus we are presented with the contradiction that Isabel's "idea" on the one hand can be described adequately in a superficial manner, but that it nevertheless breeds a lot of psychological interest and vague emotions.

analysis

She put the letter into her pocket and offered her visitor a smile of welcome, exhibiting no trace of discomposure and half surprised at her coolness. "They told me you were out here," said Lord Warburton; "and as there was no one in the drawing-room and it's really you that I wish to see, I came out with no more ado." Isabel had got up; she felt a wish, for the moment, that he should not sit down beside her. "I was just going indoors." "Please don't do that; it's much jollier here; I've ridden over from Lockleigh; it's a lovely day." His smile was peculiarly friendly and pleasing, and his whole person seemed to emit that radiance of good-feeling and good fare which had formed the charm of the girl's first impression of him. It surrounded him like a zone of fine June weather. "We'll walk about a little then," said Isabel, who could not divest herself of the sense of an intention on the part of her visitor and who wished both to elude the intention and to satisfy her curiosity about it. It had flashed upon her vision once before, and it had given her on that occasion, as we know, a certain alarm. This alarm was composed of several elements, not all of which were disagreeable; she had indeed spent some days in analysing them and had succeeded in separating the pleasant part of the idea of Lord Warburton's "making up" to her from the painful. It may appear to some readers that the young lady was both precipitate and unduly fastidious; but the latter of these facts, if the charge be true, may serve to exonerate her from the discredit of the former. She was not eager to convince herself that a territorial magnate, as she had heard Lord Warburton called, was smitten with her charms; the fact of a declaration from such a source carrying with it really more questions than it would answer. She had received a strong impression of his being a "personage," and she had occupied herself in examining the image so conveyed. At the risk of adding to the evidence of her self-sufficiency it must be said that there had been moments when this possibility of admiration by a personage represented to her an aggression almost to the degree of an affront, quite to the degree of an inconvenience. She had never yet known a personage; there had been no personages, in this sense, in her life; there were probably none such at all in her native land. When she had thought of individual eminence she had thought of it on the basis of character and wit--of what one might like in a gentleman's mind and in his talk. She herself was a character--she couldn't help being aware of that; and hitherto her visions of a completed consciousness had concerned themselves largely with moral images--things as to which the question would be whether they pleased her sublime soul. Lord Warburton loomed up before her, largely and brightly, as a collection of attributes and powers which were not to be measured by this simple rule, but which demanded a different sort of appreciation--an appreciation that the girl, with her habit of judging quickly and freely, felt she lacked patience to bestow. He appeared to demand of her something that no one else, as it were, had presumed to do. What she felt was that a territorial, a political, a social magnate had conceived the design of drawing her into the system in which he rather invidiously lived and moved. A certain instinct, not imperious, but persuasive, told her to resist--murmured to her that virtually she had a system and an orbit of her own. It told her other things besides--things which both contradicted and confirmed each other; that a girl might do much worse than trust herself to such a man and that it would be very interesting to see something of his system from his own point of view; that on the other hand, however, there was evidently a great deal of it which she should regard only as a complication of every hour, and that even in the whole there was something stiff and stupid which would make it a burden. Furthermore there was a young man lately come from America who had no system at all, but who had a character of which it was useless for her to try to persuade herself that the impression on her mind had been light. The letter she carried in her pocket all sufficiently reminded her of the contrary. Smile not, however, I venture to repeat, at this simple young woman from Albany who debated whether she should accept an English peer before he had offered himself and who was disposed to believe that on the whole she could do better. She was a person of great good faith, and if there was a great deal of folly in her wisdom those who judge her severely may have the satisfaction of finding that, later, she became consistently wise only at the cost of an amount of folly which will constitute almost a direct appeal to charity. Lord Warburton seemed quite ready to walk, to sit or to do anything that Isabel should propose, and he gave her this assurance with his usual air of being particularly pleased to exercise a social virtue. But he was, nevertheless, not in command of his emotions, and as he strolled beside her for a moment, in silence, looking at her without letting her know it, there was something embarrassed in his glance and his misdirected laughter. Yes, assuredly--as we have touched on the point, we may return to it for a moment again--the English are the most romantic people in the world and Lord Warburton was about to give an example of it. He was about to take a step which would astonish all his friends and displease a great many of them, and which had superficially nothing to recommend it. The young lady who trod the turf beside him had come from a queer country across the sea which he knew a good deal about; her antecedents, her associations were very vague to his mind except in so far as they were generic, and in this sense they showed as distinct and unimportant. Miss Archer had neither a fortune nor the sort of beauty that justifies a man to the multitude, and he calculated that he had spent about twenty-six hours in her company. He had summed up all this--the perversity of the impulse, which had declined to avail itself of the most liberal opportunities to subside, and the judgement of mankind, as exemplified particularly in the more quickly-judging half of it: he had looked these things well in the face and then had dismissed them from his thoughts. He cared no more for them than for the rosebud in his buttonhole. It is the good fortune of a man who for the greater part of a lifetime has abstained without effort from making himself disagreeable to his friends, that when the need comes for such a course it is not discredited by irritating associations. "I hope you had a pleasant ride," said Isabel, who observed her companion's hesitancy. "It would have been pleasant if for nothing else than that it brought me here." "Are you so fond of Gardencourt?" the girl asked, more and more sure that he meant to make some appeal to her; wishing not to challenge him if he hesitated, and yet to keep all the quietness of her reason if he proceeded. It suddenly came upon her that her situation was one which a few weeks ago she would have deemed deeply romantic: the park of an old English country-house, with the foreground embellished by a "great" (as she supposed) nobleman in the act of making love to a young lady who, on careful inspection, should be found to present remarkable analogies with herself. But if she was now the heroine of the situation she succeeded scarcely the less in looking at it from the outside. "I care nothing for Gardencourt," said her companion. "I care only for you." "You've known me too short a time to have a right to say that, and I can't believe you're serious." These words of Isabel's were not perfectly sincere, for she had no doubt whatever that he himself was. They were simply a tribute to the fact, of which she was perfectly aware, that those he had just uttered would have excited surprise on the part of a vulgar world. And, moreover, if anything beside the sense she had already acquired that Lord Warburton was not a loose thinker had been needed to convince her, the tone in which he replied would quite have served the purpose. "One's right in such a matter is not measured by the time, Miss Archer; it's measured by the feeling itself. If I were to wait three months it would make no difference; I shall not be more sure of what I mean than I am to-day. Of course I've seen you very little, but my impression dates from the very first hour we met. I lost no time, I fell in love with you then. It was at first sight, as the novels say; I know now that's not a fancy-phrase, and I shall think better of novels for evermore. Those two days I spent here settled it; I don't know whether you suspected I was doing so, but I paid-mentally speaking I mean--the greatest possible attention to you. Nothing you said, nothing you did, was lost upon me. When you came to Lockleigh the other day--or rather when you went away--I was perfectly sure. Nevertheless I made up my mind to think it over and to question myself narrowly. I've done so; all these days I've done nothing else. I don't make mistakes about such things; I'm a very judicious animal. I don't go off easily, but when I'm touched, it's for life. It's for life, Miss Archer, it's for life," Lord Warburton repeated in the kindest, tenderest, pleasantest voice Isabel had ever heard, and looking at her with eyes charged with the light of a passion that had sifted itself clear of the baser parts of emotion--the heat, the violence, the unreason--and that burned as steadily as a lamp in a windless place. By tacit consent, as he talked, they had walked more and more slowly, and at last they stopped and he took her hand. "Ah, Lord Warburton, how little you know me!" Isabel said very gently. Gently too she drew her hand away. "Don't taunt me with that; that I don't know you better makes me unhappy enough already; it's all my loss. But that's what I want, and it seems to me I'm taking the best way. If you'll be my wife, then I shall know you, and when I tell you all the good I think of you you'll not be able to say it's from ignorance." "If you know me little I know you even less," said Isabel. "You mean that, unlike yourself, I may not improve on acquaintance? Ah, of course that's very possible. But think, to speak to you as I do, how determined I must be to try and give satisfaction! You do like me rather, don't you?" "I like you very much, Lord Warburton," she answered; and at this moment she liked him immensely. "I thank you for saying that; it shows you don't regard me as a stranger. I really believe I've filled all the other relations of life very creditably, and I don't see why I shouldn't fill this one--in which I offer myself to you--seeing that I care so much more about it. Ask the people who know me well; I've friends who'll speak for me." "I don't need the recommendation of your friends," said Isabel. "Ah now, that's delightful of you. You believe in me yourself." "Completely," Isabel declared. She quite glowed there, inwardly, with the pleasure of feeling she did. The light in her companion's eyes turned into a smile, and he gave a long exhalation of joy. "If you're mistaken, Miss Archer, let me lose all I possess!" She wondered whether he meant this for a reminder that he was rich, and, on the instant, felt sure that he didn't. He was thinking that, as he would have said himself; and indeed he might safely leave it to the memory of any interlocutor, especially of one to whom he was offering his hand. Isabel had prayed that she might not be agitated, and her mind was tranquil enough, even while she listened and asked herself what it was best she should say, to indulge in this incidental criticism. What she should say, had she asked herself? Her foremost wish was to say something if possible not less kind than what he had said to her. His words had carried perfect conviction with them; she felt she did, all so mysteriously, matter to him. "I thank you more than I can say for your offer," she returned at last. "It does me great honour." "Ah, don't say that!" he broke out. "I was afraid you'd say something like that. I don't see what you've to do with that sort of thing. I don't see why you should thank me--it's I who ought to thank you for listening to me: a man you know so little coming down on you with such a thumper! Of course it's a great question; I must tell you that I'd rather ask it than have it to answer myself. But the way you've listened--or at least your having listened at all--gives me some hope." "Don't hope too much," Isabel said. "Oh Miss Archer!" her companion murmured, smiling again, in his seriousness, as if such a warning might perhaps be taken but as the play of high spirits, the exuberance of elation. "Should you be greatly surprised if I were to beg you not to hope at all?" Isabel asked. "Surprised? I don't know what you mean by surprise. It wouldn't be that; it would be a feeling very much worse." Isabel walked on again; she was silent for some minutes. "I'm very sure that, highly as I already think of you, my opinion of you, if I should know you well, would only rise. But I'm by no means sure that you wouldn't be disappointed. And I say that not in the least out of conventional modesty; it's perfectly sincere." "I'm willing to risk it, Miss Archer," her companion replied. "It's a great question, as you say. It's a very difficult question." "I don't expect you of course to answer it outright. Think it over as long as may be necessary. If I can gain by waiting I'll gladly wait a long time. Only remember that in the end my dearest happiness depends on your answer." "I should be very sorry to keep you in suspense," said Isabel. "Oh, don't mind. I'd much rather have a good answer six months hence than a bad one to-day." "But it's very probable that even six months hence I shouldn't be able to give you one that you'd think good." "Why not, since you really like me?" "Ah, you must never doubt that," said Isabel. "Well then, I don't see what more you ask!" "It's not what I ask; it's what I can give. I don't think I should suit you; I really don't think I should." "You needn't worry about that. That's my affair. You needn't be a better royalist than the king." "It's not only that," said Isabel; "but I'm not sure I wish to marry any one." "Very likely you don't. I've no doubt a great many women begin that way," said his lordship, who, be it averred, did not in the least believe in the axiom he thus beguiled his anxiety by uttering. "But they're frequently persuaded." "Ah, that's because they want to be!" And Isabel lightly laughed. Her suitor's countenance fell, and he looked at her for a while in silence. "I'm afraid it's my being an Englishman that makes you hesitate," he said presently. "I know your uncle thinks you ought to marry in your own country." Isabel listened to this assertion with some interest; it had never occurred to her that Mr. Touchett was likely to discuss her matrimonial prospects with Lord Warburton. "Has he told you that?" "I remember his making the remark. He spoke perhaps of Americans generally." "He appears himself to have found it very pleasant to live in England." Isabel spoke in a manner that might have seemed a little perverse, but which expressed both her constant perception of her uncle's outward felicity and her general disposition to elude any obligation to take a restricted view. It gave her companion hope, and he immediately cried with warmth: "Ah, my dear Miss Archer, old England's a very good sort of country, you know! And it will be still better when we've furbished it up a little." "Oh, don't furbish it, Lord Warburton--, leave it alone. I like it this way." "Well then, if you like it, I'm more and more unable to see your objection to what I propose." "I'm afraid I can't make you understand." "You ought at least to try. I've a fair intelligence. Are you afraid--afraid of the climate? We can easily live elsewhere, you know. You can pick out your climate, the whole world over." These words were uttered with a breadth of candour that was like the embrace of strong arms--that was like the fragrance straight in her face, and by his clean, breathing lips, of she knew not what strange gardens, what charged airs. She would have given her little finger at that moment to feel strongly and simply the impulse to answer: "Lord Warburton, it's impossible for me to do better in this wonderful world, I think, than commit myself, very gratefully, to your loyalty." But though she was lost in admiration of her opportunity she managed to move back into the deepest shade of it, even as some wild, caught creature in a vast cage. The "splendid" security so offered her was not the greatest she could conceive. What she finally bethought herself of saying was something very different--something that deferred the need of really facing her crisis. "Don't think me unkind if I ask you to say no more about this to-day." "Certainly, certainly!" her companion cried. "I wouldn't bore you for the world." "You've given me a great deal to think about, and I promise you to do it justice." "That's all I ask of you, of course--and that you'll remember how absolutely my happiness is in your hands." Isabel listened with extreme respect to this admonition, but she said after a minute: "I must tell you that what I shall think about is some way of letting you know that what you ask is impossible--letting you know it without making you miserable." "There's no way to do that, Miss Archer. I won't say that if you refuse me you'll kill me; I shall not die of it. But I shall do worse; I shall live to no purpose." "You'll live to marry a better woman than I." "Don't say that, please," said Lord Warburton very gravely. "That's fair to neither of us." "To marry a worse one then." "If there are better women 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." His gravity made her feel equally grave, and she showed it by again requesting him to drop the subject for the present. "I'll speak to you myself--very soon. Perhaps I shall write to you." "At your convenience, yes," he replied. "Whatever time you take, it must seem to me long, and I suppose I must make the best of that." "I shall not keep you in suspense; I only want to collect my mind a little." He gave a melancholy sigh and stood looking at her a moment, with his hands behind him, giving short nervous shakes to his hunting-crop. "Do you know I'm very much afraid of it--of that remarkable mind of yours?" Our heroine's biographer can scarcely tell why, but the question made her start and brought a conscious blush to her cheek. She returned his look a moment, and then with a note in her voice that might almost have appealed to his compassion, "So am I, my lord!" she oddly exclaimed. His compassion was not stirred, however; all he possessed of the faculty of pity was needed at home. "Ah! be merciful, be merciful," he murmured. "I think you had better go," said Isabel. "I'll write to you." "Very good; but whatever you write I'll come and see you, you know." And then he stood reflecting, his eyes fixed on the observant countenance of Bunchie, who had the air of having understood all that had been said and of pretending to carry off the indiscretion by a simulated fit of curiosity as to the roots of an ancient oak. "There's one thing more," he went on. "You know, if you don't like Lockleigh--if you think it's damp or anything of that sort--you need never go within fifty miles of it. It's not damp, by the way; I've had the house thoroughly examined; it's perfectly safe and right. But if you shouldn't fancy it you 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. Good-bye." "I adore a moat," said Isabel. "Good-bye." He held out his hand, and she gave him hers a moment--a moment long enough for him to bend his handsome bared head and kiss it. Then, still agitating, in his mastered emotion, his implement of the chase, he walked rapidly away. He was evidently much upset. Isabel herself was upset, but she had not been affected as she would have imagined. What she felt was not a great responsibility, a great difficulty of choice; it appeared to her there had been no choice in the question. She couldn't marry Lord Warburton; the idea failed to support any enlightened prejudice in favour of the free exploration of life that she had hitherto entertained or was now capable of entertaining. She must write this to him, she must convince him, and that duty was comparatively simple. But what disturbed her, in the sense that it struck her with wonderment, was this very fact that it cost her so little to refuse a magnificent "chance." With whatever qualifications one would, Lord Warburton had offered her a great opportunity; the situation might have discomforts, might contain oppressive, might contain narrowing elements, might prove really but a stupefying anodyne; but she did her sex no injustice in believing that nineteen women out of twenty would have accommodated themselves to it without a pang. Why then upon her also should it not irresistibly impose itself? Who was she, what was she, that she should hold herself superior? What view of life, what design upon fate, what conception of happiness, had she that pretended to be larger than these large these fabulous occasions? If she wouldn't do such a thing as that then she must do great things, she must do something greater. Poor Isabel found ground to remind herself from time to time that she must not be too proud, and nothing could be more sincere than her prayer to be delivered from such a danger: the isolation and loneliness of pride had for her mind the horror of a desert place. If it had been pride that interfered with her accepting Lord Warburton such a betise was singularly misplaced; and she was so conscious of liking him that she ventured to assure herself it was the very softness, and the fine intelligence, of sympathy. She liked him too much to marry him, that was the truth; something assured her there was a fallacy somewhere in the glowing logic of the proposition--as he saw it--even though she mightn't put her very finest finger-point on it; and to inflict upon a man who offered so much a wife with a tendency to criticise would be a peculiarly discreditable act. She had promised him she would consider his question, and when, after he had left her, she wandered back to the bench where he had found her and lost herself in meditation, it might have seemed that she was keeping her vow. But this was not the case; she was wondering if she were not a cold, hard, priggish person, and, on her at last getting up and going rather quickly back to the house, felt, as she had said to her friend, really frightened at herself.

Isabel is aware that Lord Warburton has arrived with some intention, and she feels curious about this intention at the same time she wishes to elude this intention. Although the narrator does not tell us so, it is obvious that Lord Warburton is about to propose marriage to her. She perceives Lord Warburton as "looming up before her" and he appears to demand something of her, as if he is about to draw her into the orbit of the system in which he lives. Her instinct tells her to resist though, especially because she has a system of her own. She also notes that Caspar Goodwood is a man with no system at all, even though he has certain definite intentions with her. Meanwhile, Lord Warburton seems somewhat embarrassed. He was about to do something that would shock all his countrymen, even though he has only been in Isabel's company for 26 hours. Lord Warburton tells her he's in love with her, and that he will be forever. Isabel claims that he does not know her at all. He tells her if she is his wife, he will come to know her. She tells him that she believes in him, and does not need the recommendation of his friends to do so. But then, she thanks him for his offer. He tells her that this gives him some hope that she will come to accept him eventually. She tells him not to hope. She is sure that her opinion of him can only rise, but that his opinion of her will only lower with time. Isabel tells him she is refusing him not because she dislikes him, but because it's about what she herself can give to the marriage. Further, she is not sure that she ever wishes to marry anyone. Isabel feels that she would give her little finger to have the impulse to accept Lord Warburton's proposal; she wishes she could believe it was the best possible opportunity she could have. However, she feels like a "wild, caught creature in a vast cage" when presented with this opportunity. This opportunity was not the greatest she could conceive of. Isabel tells him finally that he ought not to bring up the subject today again, and that she only needs time to think of some way to let him know that what he asks is impossible. Lord Warburton tells her he will live without purpose if she rejects him, and she protests that he will marry a better woman than she. She tells him that she only wants to collect her mind a little, and he responds that he is afraid of her "remarkable" mind. She responds, "So am I, my lord. As he leaves, Isabel feels that there had been no great difficult choice, as she simply could not have married him. The idea failed to support any enlightened prejudice in favour of the free exploration of life that she had hitherto entertained or was now capable of entertaining"

summary

She put the letter into her pocket and offered her visitor a smile of welcome, exhibiting no trace of discomposure and half surprised at her coolness. "They told me you were out here," said Lord Warburton; "and as there was no one in the drawing-room and it's really you that I wish to see, I came out with no more ado." Isabel had got up; she felt a wish, for the moment, that he should not sit down beside her. "I was just going indoors." "Please don't do that; it's much jollier here; I've ridden over from Lockleigh; it's a lovely day." His smile was peculiarly friendly and pleasing, and his whole person seemed to emit that radiance of good-feeling and good fare which had formed the charm of the girl's first impression of him. It surrounded him like a zone of fine June weather. "We'll walk about a little then," said Isabel, who could not divest herself of the sense of an intention on the part of her visitor and who wished both to elude the intention and to satisfy her curiosity about it. It had flashed upon her vision once before, and it had given her on that occasion, as we know, a certain alarm. This alarm was composed of several elements, not all of which were disagreeable; she had indeed spent some days in analysing them and had succeeded in separating the pleasant part of the idea of Lord Warburton's "making up" to her from the painful. It may appear to some readers that the young lady was both precipitate and unduly fastidious; but the latter of these facts, if the charge be true, may serve to exonerate her from the discredit of the former. She was not eager to convince herself that a territorial magnate, as she had heard Lord Warburton called, was smitten with her charms; the fact of a declaration from such a source carrying with it really more questions than it would answer. She had received a strong impression of his being a "personage," and she had occupied herself in examining the image so conveyed. At the risk of adding to the evidence of her self-sufficiency it must be said that there had been moments when this possibility of admiration by a personage represented to her an aggression almost to the degree of an affront, quite to the degree of an inconvenience. She had never yet known a personage; there had been no personages, in this sense, in her life; there were probably none such at all in her native land. When she had thought of individual eminence she had thought of it on the basis of character and wit--of what one might like in a gentleman's mind and in his talk. She herself was a character--she couldn't help being aware of that; and hitherto her visions of a completed consciousness had concerned themselves largely with moral images--things as to which the question would be whether they pleased her sublime soul. Lord Warburton loomed up before her, largely and brightly, as a collection of attributes and powers which were not to be measured by this simple rule, but which demanded a different sort of appreciation--an appreciation that the girl, with her habit of judging quickly and freely, felt she lacked patience to bestow. He appeared to demand of her something that no one else, as it were, had presumed to do. What she felt was that a territorial, a political, a social magnate had conceived the design of drawing her into the system in which he rather invidiously lived and moved. A certain instinct, not imperious, but persuasive, told her to resist--murmured to her that virtually she had a system and an orbit of her own. It told her other things besides--things which both contradicted and confirmed each other; that a girl might do much worse than trust herself to such a man and that it would be very interesting to see something of his system from his own point of view; that on the other hand, however, there was evidently a great deal of it which she should regard only as a complication of every hour, and that even in the whole there was something stiff and stupid which would make it a burden. Furthermore there was a young man lately come from America who had no system at all, but who had a character of which it was useless for her to try to persuade herself that the impression on her mind had been light. The letter she carried in her pocket all sufficiently reminded her of the contrary. Smile not, however, I venture to repeat, at this simple young woman from Albany who debated whether she should accept an English peer before he had offered himself and who was disposed to believe that on the whole she could do better. She was a person of great good faith, and if there was a great deal of folly in her wisdom those who judge her severely may have the satisfaction of finding that, later, she became consistently wise only at the cost of an amount of folly which will constitute almost a direct appeal to charity. Lord Warburton seemed quite ready to walk, to sit or to do anything that Isabel should propose, and he gave her this assurance with his usual air of being particularly pleased to exercise a social virtue. But he was, nevertheless, not in command of his emotions, and as he strolled beside her for a moment, in silence, looking at her without letting her know it, there was something embarrassed in his glance and his misdirected laughter. Yes, assuredly--as we have touched on the point, we may return to it for a moment again--the English are the most romantic people in the world and Lord Warburton was about to give an example of it. He was about to take a step which would astonish all his friends and displease a great many of them, and which had superficially nothing to recommend it. The young lady who trod the turf beside him had come from a queer country across the sea which he knew a good deal about; her antecedents, her associations were very vague to his mind except in so far as they were generic, and in this sense they showed as distinct and unimportant. Miss Archer had neither a fortune nor the sort of beauty that justifies a man to the multitude, and he calculated that he had spent about twenty-six hours in her company. He had summed up all this--the perversity of the impulse, which had declined to avail itself of the most liberal opportunities to subside, and the judgement of mankind, as exemplified particularly in the more quickly-judging half of it: he had looked these things well in the face and then had dismissed them from his thoughts. He cared no more for them than for the rosebud in his buttonhole. It is the good fortune of a man who for the greater part of a lifetime has abstained without effort from making himself disagreeable to his friends, that when the need comes for such a course it is not discredited by irritating associations. "I hope you had a pleasant ride," said Isabel, who observed her companion's hesitancy. "It would have been pleasant if for nothing else than that it brought me here." "Are you so fond of Gardencourt?" the girl asked, more and more sure that he meant to make some appeal to her; wishing not to challenge him if he hesitated, and yet to keep all the quietness of her reason if he proceeded. It suddenly came upon her that her situation was one which a few weeks ago she would have deemed deeply romantic: the park of an old English country-house, with the foreground embellished by a "great" (as she supposed) nobleman in the act of making love to a young lady who, on careful inspection, should be found to present remarkable analogies with herself. But if she was now the heroine of the situation she succeeded scarcely the less in looking at it from the outside. "I care nothing for Gardencourt," said her companion. "I care only for you." "You've known me too short a time to have a right to say that, and I can't believe you're serious." These words of Isabel's were not perfectly sincere, for she had no doubt whatever that he himself was. They were simply a tribute to the fact, of which she was perfectly aware, that those he had just uttered would have excited surprise on the part of a vulgar world. And, moreover, if anything beside the sense she had already acquired that Lord Warburton was not a loose thinker had been needed to convince her, the tone in which he replied would quite have served the purpose. "One's right in such a matter is not measured by the time, Miss Archer; it's measured by the feeling itself. If I were to wait three months it would make no difference; I shall not be more sure of what I mean than I am to-day. Of course I've seen you very little, but my impression dates from the very first hour we met. I lost no time, I fell in love with you then. It was at first sight, as the novels say; I know now that's not a fancy-phrase, and I shall think better of novels for evermore. Those two days I spent here settled it; I don't know whether you suspected I was doing so, but I paid-mentally speaking I mean--the greatest possible attention to you. Nothing you said, nothing you did, was lost upon me. When you came to Lockleigh the other day--or rather when you went away--I was perfectly sure. Nevertheless I made up my mind to think it over and to question myself narrowly. I've done so; all these days I've done nothing else. I don't make mistakes about such things; I'm a very judicious animal. I don't go off easily, but when I'm touched, it's for life. It's for life, Miss Archer, it's for life," Lord Warburton repeated in the kindest, tenderest, pleasantest voice Isabel had ever heard, and looking at her with eyes charged with the light of a passion that had sifted itself clear of the baser parts of emotion--the heat, the violence, the unreason--and that burned as steadily as a lamp in a windless place. By tacit consent, as he talked, they had walked more and more slowly, and at last they stopped and he took her hand. "Ah, Lord Warburton, how little you know me!" Isabel said very gently. Gently too she drew her hand away. "Don't taunt me with that; that I don't know you better makes me unhappy enough already; it's all my loss. But that's what I want, and it seems to me I'm taking the best way. If you'll be my wife, then I shall know you, and when I tell you all the good I think of you you'll not be able to say it's from ignorance." "If you know me little I know you even less," said Isabel. "You mean that, unlike yourself, I may not improve on acquaintance? Ah, of course that's very possible. But think, to speak to you as I do, how determined I must be to try and give satisfaction! You do like me rather, don't you?" "I like you very much, Lord Warburton," she answered; and at this moment she liked him immensely. "I thank you for saying that; it shows you don't regard me as a stranger. I really believe I've filled all the other relations of life very creditably, and I don't see why I shouldn't fill this one--in which I offer myself to you--seeing that I care so much more about it. Ask the people who know me well; I've friends who'll speak for me." "I don't need the recommendation of your friends," said Isabel. "Ah now, that's delightful of you. You believe in me yourself." "Completely," Isabel declared. She quite glowed there, inwardly, with the pleasure of feeling she did. The light in her companion's eyes turned into a smile, and he gave a long exhalation of joy. "If you're mistaken, Miss Archer, let me lose all I possess!" She wondered whether he meant this for a reminder that he was rich, and, on the instant, felt sure that he didn't. He was thinking that, as he would have said himself; and indeed he might safely leave it to the memory of any interlocutor, especially of one to whom he was offering his hand. Isabel had prayed that she might not be agitated, and her mind was tranquil enough, even while she listened and asked herself what it was best she should say, to indulge in this incidental criticism. What she should say, had she asked herself? Her foremost wish was to say something if possible not less kind than what he had said to her. His words had carried perfect conviction with them; she felt she did, all so mysteriously, matter to him. "I thank you more than I can say for your offer," she returned at last. "It does me great honour." "Ah, don't say that!" he broke out. "I was afraid you'd say something like that. I don't see what you've to do with that sort of thing. I don't see why you should thank me--it's I who ought to thank you for listening to me: a man you know so little coming down on you with such a thumper! Of course it's a great question; I must tell you that I'd rather ask it than have it to answer myself. But the way you've listened--or at least your having listened at all--gives me some hope." "Don't hope too much," Isabel said. "Oh Miss Archer!" her companion murmured, smiling again, in his seriousness, as if such a warning might perhaps be taken but as the play of high spirits, the exuberance of elation. "Should you be greatly surprised if I were to beg you not to hope at all?" Isabel asked. "Surprised? I don't know what you mean by surprise. It wouldn't be that; it would be a feeling very much worse." Isabel walked on again; she was silent for some minutes. "I'm very sure that, highly as I already think of you, my opinion of you, if I should know you well, would only rise. But I'm by no means sure that you wouldn't be disappointed. And I say that not in the least out of conventional modesty; it's perfectly sincere." "I'm willing to risk it, Miss Archer," her companion replied. "It's a great question, as you say. It's a very difficult question." "I don't expect you of course to answer it outright. Think it over as long as may be necessary. If I can gain by waiting I'll gladly wait a long time. Only remember that in the end my dearest happiness depends on your answer." "I should be very sorry to keep you in suspense," said Isabel. "Oh, don't mind. I'd much rather have a good answer six months hence than a bad one to-day." "But it's very probable that even six months hence I shouldn't be able to give you one that you'd think good." "Why not, since you really like me?" "Ah, you must never doubt that," said Isabel. "Well then, I don't see what more you ask!" "It's not what I ask; it's what I can give. I don't think I should suit you; I really don't think I should." "You needn't worry about that. That's my affair. You needn't be a better royalist than the king." "It's not only that," said Isabel; "but I'm not sure I wish to marry any one." "Very likely you don't. I've no doubt a great many women begin that way," said his lordship, who, be it averred, did not in the least believe in the axiom he thus beguiled his anxiety by uttering. "But they're frequently persuaded." "Ah, that's because they want to be!" And Isabel lightly laughed. Her suitor's countenance fell, and he looked at her for a while in silence. "I'm afraid it's my being an Englishman that makes you hesitate," he said presently. "I know your uncle thinks you ought to marry in your own country." Isabel listened to this assertion with some interest; it had never occurred to her that Mr. Touchett was likely to discuss her matrimonial prospects with Lord Warburton. "Has he told you that?" "I remember his making the remark. He spoke perhaps of Americans generally." "He appears himself to have found it very pleasant to live in England." Isabel spoke in a manner that might have seemed a little perverse, but which expressed both her constant perception of her uncle's outward felicity and her general disposition to elude any obligation to take a restricted view. It gave her companion hope, and he immediately cried with warmth: "Ah, my dear Miss Archer, old England's a very good sort of country, you know! And it will be still better when we've furbished it up a little." "Oh, don't furbish it, Lord Warburton--, leave it alone. I like it this way." "Well then, if you like it, I'm more and more unable to see your objection to what I propose." "I'm afraid I can't make you understand." "You ought at least to try. I've a fair intelligence. Are you afraid--afraid of the climate? We can easily live elsewhere, you know. You can pick out your climate, the whole world over." These words were uttered with a breadth of candour that was like the embrace of strong arms--that was like the fragrance straight in her face, and by his clean, breathing lips, of she knew not what strange gardens, what charged airs. She would have given her little finger at that moment to feel strongly and simply the impulse to answer: "Lord Warburton, it's impossible for me to do better in this wonderful world, I think, than commit myself, very gratefully, to your loyalty." But though she was lost in admiration of her opportunity she managed to move back into the deepest shade of it, even as some wild, caught creature in a vast cage. The "splendid" security so offered her was not the greatest she could conceive. What she finally bethought herself of saying was something very different--something that deferred the need of really facing her crisis. "Don't think me unkind if I ask you to say no more about this to-day." "Certainly, certainly!" her companion cried. "I wouldn't bore you for the world." "You've given me a great deal to think about, and I promise you to do it justice." "That's all I ask of you, of course--and that you'll remember how absolutely my happiness is in your hands." Isabel listened with extreme respect to this admonition, but she said after a minute: "I must tell you that what I shall think about is some way of letting you know that what you ask is impossible--letting you know it without making you miserable." "There's no way to do that, Miss Archer. I won't say that if you refuse me you'll kill me; I shall not die of it. But I shall do worse; I shall live to no purpose." "You'll live to marry a better woman than I." "Don't say that, please," said Lord Warburton very gravely. "That's fair to neither of us." "To marry a worse one then." "If there are better women 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." His gravity made her feel equally grave, and she showed it by again requesting him to drop the subject for the present. "I'll speak to you myself--very soon. Perhaps I shall write to you." "At your convenience, yes," he replied. "Whatever time you take, it must seem to me long, and I suppose I must make the best of that." "I shall not keep you in suspense; I only want to collect my mind a little." He gave a melancholy sigh and stood looking at her a moment, with his hands behind him, giving short nervous shakes to his hunting-crop. "Do you know I'm very much afraid of it--of that remarkable mind of yours?" Our heroine's biographer can scarcely tell why, but the question made her start and brought a conscious blush to her cheek. She returned his look a moment, and then with a note in her voice that might almost have appealed to his compassion, "So am I, my lord!" she oddly exclaimed. His compassion was not stirred, however; all he possessed of the faculty of pity was needed at home. "Ah! be merciful, be merciful," he murmured. "I think you had better go," said Isabel. "I'll write to you." "Very good; but whatever you write I'll come and see you, you know." And then he stood reflecting, his eyes fixed on the observant countenance of Bunchie, who had the air of having understood all that had been said and of pretending to carry off the indiscretion by a simulated fit of curiosity as to the roots of an ancient oak. "There's one thing more," he went on. "You know, if you don't like Lockleigh--if you think it's damp or anything of that sort--you need never go within fifty miles of it. It's not damp, by the way; I've had the house thoroughly examined; it's perfectly safe and right. But if you shouldn't fancy it you 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. Good-bye." "I adore a moat," said Isabel. "Good-bye." He held out his hand, and she gave him hers a moment--a moment long enough for him to bend his handsome bared head and kiss it. Then, still agitating, in his mastered emotion, his implement of the chase, he walked rapidly away. He was evidently much upset. Isabel herself was upset, but she had not been affected as she would have imagined. What she felt was not a great responsibility, a great difficulty of choice; it appeared to her there had been no choice in the question. She couldn't marry Lord Warburton; the idea failed to support any enlightened prejudice in favour of the free exploration of life that she had hitherto entertained or was now capable of entertaining. She must write this to him, she must convince him, and that duty was comparatively simple. But what disturbed her, in the sense that it struck her with wonderment, was this very fact that it cost her so little to refuse a magnificent "chance." With whatever qualifications one would, Lord Warburton had offered her a great opportunity; the situation might have discomforts, might contain oppressive, might contain narrowing elements, might prove really but a stupefying anodyne; but she did her sex no injustice in believing that nineteen women out of twenty would have accommodated themselves to it without a pang. Why then upon her also should it not irresistibly impose itself? Who was she, what was she, that she should hold herself superior? What view of life, what design upon fate, what conception of happiness, had she that pretended to be larger than these large these fabulous occasions? If she wouldn't do such a thing as that then she must do great things, she must do something greater. Poor Isabel found ground to remind herself from time to time that she must not be too proud, and nothing could be more sincere than her prayer to be delivered from such a danger: the isolation and loneliness of pride had for her mind the horror of a desert place. If it had been pride that interfered with her accepting Lord Warburton such a betise was singularly misplaced; and she was so conscious of liking him that she ventured to assure herself it was the very softness, and the fine intelligence, of sympathy. She liked him too much to marry him, that was the truth; something assured her there was a fallacy somewhere in the glowing logic of the proposition--as he saw it--even though she mightn't put her very finest finger-point on it; and to inflict upon a man who offered so much a wife with a tendency to criticise would be a peculiarly discreditable act. She had promised him she would consider his question, and when, after he had left her, she wandered back to the bench where he had found her and lost herself in meditation, it might have seemed that she was keeping her vow. But this was not the case; she was wondering if she were not a cold, hard, priggish person, and, on her at last getting up and going rather quickly back to the house, felt, as she had said to her friend, really frightened at herself.

Ralph and Henrietta do not seem to really get along -- perhaps they might remind us of friends in a TV sitcom who always make fun of each other, never see eye to eye, yet nevertheless get something out of each other's company. Ralph finds it fun to evade straightforward answers to Henrietta's questions about his own identity and function in the world, and Henrietta persists in pinning him down with one. Ralph seems to represent Europeans here -- a sick and idle, but cultured, person -- and Henrietta is the American of the "Future" who is bold, persistent and hard working. This is representative of Henry James' well-known "American Theme" in which Americans arrive in Europe, and seem to offer something new to a decadent culture. But what is it, exactly that they offer? Henrietta seems to offer straightforward, puritan values. In Chapter 12, we have what will be seen as her first great action, her refusal of Lord Warburton's marriage proposal. For any American without a fortune, this would have been seen as a great opportunity: marrying a rich, well respected Lord from England. Why does Isabel reject his marriage proposal? She tells him she has nothing to give: she could mean this in a financial sense, but she could also mean that she believes she must develop as an individual, original and independent person in order to enter into a marriage. She furthermore believes herself to be capable of an even greater opportunity: does this mean she believes another man of greater status will propose to her? Or does she think she will be able to occupy herself in life in some other way? The great idea upon which her ambition settles is unclear. What could it mean to engage in "the free exploration of life" ? It would appear that Isabel's great idea is to assert some sort of independent freedom of character, but the means of expression of such freedom does not seem to be readily available to her. It does not seem to lie in any possible occupation she could have, especially because she is not a very practical person, but rather a theoretical one. It does not seem to lie in her social relations to others, because this seems to mean that she will have to submit to a particular social system thereby losing her freedom. This leads to a more existential question that is being posed in the book: What is freedom? Can it be asserted in any other way, other than negatively? Meanwhile, the fact that Caspar Goodwood has arrived at the same time that Lord Warburton has decided to propose forms something of a climax of the first section of the novel. Isabel is presented with two possible, concrete realizations for her "idea" as to what she will do in life, and she rejects them both, although she rejects them for opposite reasons. One man is not at all likeable, and not at all her ideal; the other is perfectly an ideal of a person, and she likes him perfectly well, but she intuitively feels that she does not want to marry him. Her idea thus assumes expression only negatively here. In Chapter 14, we get some more exploration into Isabel's motivations for rejecting Lord Warburton's marriage proposal. She claims that she does not want to separate herself from "life" - from the usual chances that most people suffer. She seems to have a lust for a vague notion of experience, and she believes such experience cannot be found when one is protected from dangers through marriage. Mrs. Touchett's simple declaration ironically is the most adequate for describing Isabel's rejection -- she does think that she can "do something better." However, Mrs. Touchett is also a character that is not depicted in a flattering light; she is not the kind of person who can explore deep psychological motivations and intimate emotions. Thus we are presented with the contradiction that Isabel's "idea" on the one hand can be described adequately in a superficial manner, but that it nevertheless breeds a lot of psychological interest and vague emotions.

analysis

Miss Stackpole would have prepared to start immediately; but Isabel, as we have seen, had been notified that Lord Warburton would come again to Gardencourt, and she believed it her duty to remain there and see him. For four or five days he had made no response to her letter; then he had written, very briefly, to say he would come to luncheon two days later. There was something in these delays and postponements that touched the girl and renewed her sense of his desire to be considerate and patient, not to appear to urge her too grossly; a consideration the more studied that she was so sure he "really liked" her. Isabel told her uncle she had written to him, mentioning also his intention of coming; and the old man, in consequence, left his room earlier than usual and made his appearance at the two o'clock repast. This was by no means an act of vigilance on his part, but the fruit of a benevolent belief that his being of the company might help to cover any conjoined straying away in case Isabel should give their noble visitor another hearing. That personage drove over from Lockleigh and brought the elder of his sisters with him, a measure presumably dictated by reflexions of the same order as Mr. Touchett's. The two visitors were introduced to Miss Stackpole, who, at luncheon, occupied a seat adjoining Lord Warburton's. Isabel, who was nervous and had no relish for the prospect of again arguing the question he had so prematurely opened, could not help admiring his good-humoured self-possession, which quite disguised the symptoms of that preoccupation with her presence it was natural she should suppose him to feel. He neither looked at her nor spoke to her, and the only sign of his emotion was that he avoided meeting her eyes. He had plenty of talk for the others, however, and he appeared to eat his luncheon with discrimination and appetite. Miss Molyneux, who had a smooth, nun-like forehead and wore a large silver cross suspended from her neck, was evidently preoccupied with Henrietta Stackpole, upon whom her eyes constantly rested in a manner suggesting a conflict between deep alienation and yearning wonder. Of the two ladies from Lockleigh she was the one Isabel had liked best; there was such a world of hereditary quiet in her. Isabel was sure moreover that her mild forehead and silver cross referred to some weird Anglican mystery--some delightful reinstitution perhaps of the quaint office of the canoness. She wondered what Miss Molyneux would think of her if she knew Miss Archer had refused her brother; and then she felt sure that Miss Molyneux would never know--that Lord Warburton never told her such things. He was fond of her and kind to her, but on the whole he told her little. Such, at least, was Isabel's theory; when, at table, she was not occupied in conversation she was usually occupied in forming theories about her neighbours. According to Isabel, if Miss Molyneux should ever learn what had passed between Miss Archer and Lord Warburton she would probably be shocked at such a girl's failure to rise; or no, rather (this was our heroine's last position) she would impute to the young American but a due consciousness of inequality. Whatever Isabel might have made of her opportunities, at all events, Henrietta Stackpole was by no means disposed to neglect those in which she now found herself immersed. "Do you know you're the first lord I've ever seen?" she said very promptly to her neighbour. "I suppose you think I'm awfully benighted." "You've escaped seeing some very ugly men," Lord Warburton answered, looking a trifle absently about the table. "Are they very ugly? They try to make us believe in America that they're all handsome and magnificent and that they wear wonderful robes and crowns." "Ah, the robes and crowns are gone out of fashion," said Lord Warburton, "like your tomahawks and revolvers." "I'm sorry for that; I think an aristocracy ought to be splendid," Henrietta declared. "If it's not that, what is it?" "Oh, you know, it isn't much, at the best," her neighbour allowed. "Won't you have a potato?" "I don't care much for these European potatoes. I shouldn't know you from an ordinary American gentleman." "Do talk to me as if I were one," said Lord Warburton. "I don't see how you manage to get on without potatoes; you must find so few things to eat over here." Henrietta was silent a little; there was a chance he was not sincere. "I've had hardly any appetite since I've been here," she went on at last; "so it doesn't much matter. I don't approve of you, you know; I feel as if I ought to tell you that." "Don't approve of me?" "Yes; I don't suppose any one ever said such a thing to you before, did they? I don't approve of lords as an institution. I think the world has got beyond them--far beyond." "Oh, so do I. I don't approve of myself in the least. Sometimes it comes over me--how I should object to myself if I were not myself, don't you know? But that's rather good, by the way--not to be vainglorious." "Why don't you give it up then?" Miss Stackpole enquired. "Give up--a--?" asked Lord Warburton, meeting her harsh inflexion with a very mellow one. "Give up being a lord." "Oh, I'm so little of one! One would really forget all about it if you wretched Americans were not constantly reminding one. However, I do think of giving it up, the little there is left of it, one of these days." "I should like to see you do it!" Henrietta exclaimed rather grimly. "I'll invite you to the ceremony; we'll have a supper and a dance." "Well," said Miss Stackpole, "I like to see all sides. I don't approve of a privileged class, but I like to hear what they have to say for themselves." "Mighty little, as you see!" "I should like to draw you out a little more," Henrietta continued. "But you're always looking away. You're afraid of meeting my eye. I see you want to escape me." "No, I'm only looking for those despised potatoes." "Please explain about that young lady--your sister--then. I don't understand about her. Is she a Lady?" "She's a capital good girl." "I don't like the way you say that--as if you wanted to change the subject. Is her position inferior to yours?" "We neither of us have any position to speak of; but she's better off than I, because she has none of the bother." "Yes, she doesn't look as if she had much bother. I wish I had as little bother as that. You do produce quiet people over here, whatever else you may do." "Ah, you see one takes life easily, on the whole," said Lord Warburton. "And then you know we're very dull. Ah, we can be dull when we try!" "I should advise you to try something else. I shouldn't know what to talk to your sister about; she looks so different. Is that silver cross a badge?" "A badge?" "A sign of rank." Lord Warburton's glance had wandered a good deal, but at this it met the gaze of his neighbour. "Oh yes," he answered in a moment; "the women go in for those things. The silver cross is worn by the eldest daughters of Viscounts." Which was his harmless revenge for having occasionally had his credulity too easily engaged in America. After luncheon he proposed to Isabel to come into the gallery and look at the pictures; and though she knew he had seen the pictures twenty times she complied without criticising this pretext. Her conscience now was very easy; ever since she sent him her letter she had felt particularly light of spirit. He walked slowly to the end of the gallery, staring at its contents and saying nothing; and then he suddenly broke out: "I hoped you wouldn't write to me that way." "It was the only way, Lord Warburton," said the girl. "Do try and believe that." "If I could believe it of course I should let you alone. But we can't believe by willing it; and I confess I don't understand. I could understand your disliking me; that I could understand well. But that you should admit you do--" "What have I admitted?" Isabel interrupted, turning slightly pale. "That you think me a good fellow; isn't that it?" She said nothing, and he went on: "You don't seem to have any reason, and that gives me a sense of injustice." "I have a reason, Lord Warburton." She said it in a tone that made his heart contract. "I should like very much to know it." "I'll tell you some day when there's more to show for it." "Excuse my saying that in the mean time I must doubt of it." "You make me very unhappy," said Isabel. "I'm not sorry for that; it may help you to know how I feel. Will you kindly answer me a question?" Isabel made no audible assent, but he apparently saw in her eyes something that gave him courage to go on. "Do you prefer some one else?" "That's a question I'd rather not answer." "Ah, you do then!" her suitor murmured with bitterness. The bitterness touched her, and she cried out: "You're mistaken! I don't." He sat down on a bench, unceremoniously, doggedly, like a man in trouble; leaning his elbows on his knees and staring at the floor. "I can't even be glad of that," he said at last, throwing himself back against the wall; "for that would be an excuse." She raised her eyebrows in surprise. "An excuse? Must I excuse myself?" He paid, however, no answer to the question. Another idea had come into his head. "Is it my political opinions? Do you think I go too far?" "I can't object to your political opinions, because I don't understand them." "You don't care what I think!" he cried, getting up. "It's all the same to you." Isabel walked to the other side of the gallery and stood there showing him her charming back, her light slim figure, the length of her white neck as she bent her head, and the density of her dark braids. She stopped in front of a small picture as if for the purpose of examining it; and there was something so young and free in her movement that her very pliancy seemed to mock at him. Her eyes, however, saw nothing; they had suddenly been suffused with tears. In a moment he followed her, and by this time she had brushed her tears away; but when she turned round her face was pale and the expression of her eyes strange. "That reason that I wouldn't tell you--I'll tell it you after all. It's that I can't escape my fate." "Your fate?" "I should try to escape it if I were to marry you." "I don't understand. Why should not that be your fate as well as anything else?" "Because it's not," said Isabel femininely. "I know it's not. It's not my fate to give up--I know it can't be." Poor Lord Warburton stared, an interrogative point in either eye. "Do you call marrying me giving up?" "Not in the usual sense. It's getting--getting--getting a great deal. But it's giving up other chances." "Other chances for what?" "I don't mean chances to marry," said Isabel, her colour quickly coming back to her. And then she stopped, looking down with a deep frown, as if it were hopeless to attempt to make her meaning clear. "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 mustn't--I can't!" cried the girl. "Well, if you're bent on being miserable I don't see why you should make me so. Whatever charms a life of misery may have for you, it has none for me." "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." "By separating yourself from what?" "From life. From the usual chances and dangers, from what most people know and suffer." Lord Warburton broke into a smile that almost denoted hope. "Why, my dear Miss Archer," he began to explain with the most considerate eagerness, "I don't offer you any exoneration from life or from any chances or dangers whatever. I wish I could; depend upon it I would! For what do you take me, pray? Heaven help me, I'm not the Emperor of China! All I offer you is the chance of taking the common lot in a comfortable sort of way. The common lot? Why, I'm devoted to the common lot! Strike an alliance with me, and I promise you that you shall have plenty of it. You shall separate from nothing whatever--not even from your friend Miss Stackpole." "She'd never approve of it," said Isabel, trying to smile and take advantage of this side-issue; despising herself too, not a little, for doing so. "Are we speaking of Miss Stackpole?" his lordship asked impatiently. "I never saw a person judge things on such theoretic grounds." "Now I suppose you're speaking of me," said Isabel with humility; and she turned away again, for she saw Miss Molyneux enter the gallery, accompanied by Henrietta and by Ralph. Lord Warburton's sister addressed him with a certain timidity and reminded him she ought to return home in time for tea, as she was expecting company to partake of it. He made no answer--apparently not having heard her; he was preoccupied, and with good reason. Miss Molyneux--as if he had been Royalty--stood like a lady-in-waiting. "Well, I never, Miss Molyneux!" said Henrietta Stackpole. "If I wanted to go he'd have to go. If I wanted my brother to do a thing he'd have to do it." "Oh, Warburton does everything one wants," Miss Molyneux answered with a quick, shy laugh. "How very many pictures you have!" she went on, turning to Ralph. "They look a good many, because they're all put together," said Ralph. "But it's really a bad way." "Oh, I think it's so nice. I wish we had a gallery at Lockleigh. I'm so very fond of pictures," Miss Molyneux went on, persistently, to Ralph, as if she were afraid Miss Stackpole would address her again. Henrietta appeared at once to fascinate and to frighten her. "Ah yes, pictures are very convenient," said Ralph, who appeared to know better what style of reflexion was acceptable to her. "They're so very pleasant when it rains," the young lady continued. "It has rained of late so very often." "I'm sorry you're going away, Lord Warburton," said Henrietta. "I wanted to get a great deal more out of you." "I'm not going away," Lord Warburton answered. "Your sister says you must. In America the gentlemen obey the ladies." "I'm afraid we have some people to tea," said Miss Molyneux, looking at her brother. "Very good, my dear. We'll go." "I hoped you would resist!" Henrietta exclaimed. "I wanted to see what Miss Molyneux would do." "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." "You must come to Lockleigh again," said Miss Molyneux, very sweetly, to Isabel, ignoring this remark of Isabel's friend. Isabel looked into her quiet eyes a moment, and for that moment seemed to see in their grey depths the reflexion of everything she had rejected in rejecting Lord Warburton--the peace, the kindness, the honour, the possessions, a deep security and a great exclusion. She kissed Miss Molyneux and then she said: "I'm afraid I can never come again." "Never again?" "I'm afraid I'm going away." "Oh, I'm so very sorry," said Miss Molyneux. "I think that's so very wrong of you." Lord Warburton watched this little passage; then he turned away and stared at a picture. Ralph, leaning against the rail before the picture with his hands in his pockets, had for the moment been watching him. "I should like to see you at home," said Henrietta, whom Lord Warburton found beside him. "I should like an hour's talk with you; there are a great many questions I wish to ask you." "I shall be delighted to see you," the proprietor of Lockleigh answered; "but I'm certain not to be able to answer many of your questions. When will you come?" "Whenever Miss Archer will take me. We're thinking of going to London, but we'll go and see you first. I'm determined to get some satisfaction out of you." "If it depends upon Miss Archer I'm afraid you won't get much. She won't come to Lockleigh; she doesn't like the place." "She told me it was lovely!" said Henrietta. Lord Warburton hesitated. "She won't come, all the same. You had better come alone," he added. Henrietta straightened herself, and her large eyes expanded. "Would you make that remark to an English lady?" she enquired with soft asperity. Lord Warburton stared. "Yes, if I liked her enough." "You'd be careful not to like her enough. If Miss Archer won't visit your place again it's because she doesn't want to take me. I know what she thinks of me, and I suppose you think the same--that I oughtn't to bring in individuals." Lord Warburton was at a loss; he had not been made acquainted with Miss Stackpole's professional character and failed to catch her allusion. "Miss Archer has been warning you!" she therefore went on. "Warning me?" "Isn't that why she came off alone with you here--to put you on your guard?" "Oh dear, no," said Lord Warburton brazenly; "our talk had no such solemn character as that." "Well, you've been on your guard--intensely. I suppose it's natural to you; that's just what I wanted to observe. And so, too, Miss Molyneux--she wouldn't commit herself. You have been warned, anyway," Henrietta continued, addressing this young lady; "but for you it wasn't necessary." "I hope not," said Miss Molyneux vaguely. "Miss Stackpole takes notes," Ralph soothingly explained. "She's a great satirist; she sees through us all and she works us up." "Well, I must say I never have had such a collection of bad material!" Henrietta declared, looking from Isabel to Lord Warburton and from this nobleman to his sister and to Ralph. "There's something the matter with you all; you're as dismal as if you had got a bad cable." "You do see through us, Miss Stackpole," said Ralph in a low tone, giving her a little intelligent nod as he led the party out of the gallery. "There's something the matter with us all." Isabel came behind these two; Miss Molyneux, who decidedly liked her immensely, had taken her arm, to walk beside her over the polished floor. Lord Warburton strolled on the other side with his hands behind him and his eyes lowered. For some moments he said nothing; and then, "Is it true you're going to London?" he asked. "I believe it has been arranged." "And when shall you come back?" "In a few days; but probably for a very short time. I'm going to Paris with my aunt." "When, then, shall I see you again?" "Not for a good while," said Isabel. "But some day or other, I hope." "Do you really hope it?" "Very much." He went a few steps in silence; then he stopped and put out his hand. "Good-bye." "Good-bye," said Isabel. Miss Molyneux kissed her again, and she let the two depart. After it, without rejoining Henrietta and Ralph, she retreated to her own room; in which apartment, before dinner, she was found by Mrs. Touchett, who had stopped on her way to the salon. "I may as well tell you," said that lady, "that your uncle has informed me of your relations with Lord Warburton." Isabel considered. "Relations? They're hardly relations. That's the strange part of it: he has seen me but three or four times." "Why did you tell your uncle rather than me?" Mrs. Touchett dispassionately asked. Again the girl hesitated. "Because he knows Lord Warburton better." "Yes, but I know you better." "I'm not sure of that," said Isabel, smiling. "Neither am I, after all; especially when you give me that rather conceited look. One would think you were awfully pleased with yourself and had carried off a prize! I suppose that when you refuse an offer like Lord Warburton's it's because you expect to do something better." "Ah, my uncle didn't say that!" cried Isabel, smiling still.

Lord Warburton and his sisters arrive at Gardencourt right before Isabel departs for London. Henrietta meets Lord Warburton and tells him that she does not approve of lords as an institution. Lord Warburton agrees, and Miss Stackpole asks why he does not give it up. Lord Warburton jokes that they'll make a ceremony of it. Isabel and Lord Warburton have a moment alone in the gallery together. He tells her he does not understand why she rejects him, and he interrogates her as to what her reasons are. Isabel at least tells him the reason is that she feels she cannot escape her fate. It's not my fate to give up," she tells him. She does not want to give up other chances. I can't escape unhappiness. In marrying you I shall be trying to," she explains. She claims it is not that she wants to be miserable, but rather that she does not want to separate herself from the "usual chances and dangers" of life. Lord Warburton promises to separate her from nothing. The rest of the group then interrupts Isabel and Lord Warburton. Isabel tells Miss Molyneux that she will not be able to visit Lockleigh again because she is going away. Henrietta declares the whole party very dismal and bad material for any article she would write about them. Before Isabel leaves, Mrs. Touchett informs her that she knows about Lord Warburton's offer. She claims to know Isabel better than Mr. Touchett does, and she says that when she refuses such an offer it is because she expects to do something better

summary

Miss Stackpole would have prepared to start immediately; but Isabel, as we have seen, had been notified that Lord Warburton would come again to Gardencourt, and she believed it her duty to remain there and see him. For four or five days he had made no response to her letter; then he had written, very briefly, to say he would come to luncheon two days later. There was something in these delays and postponements that touched the girl and renewed her sense of his desire to be considerate and patient, not to appear to urge her too grossly; a consideration the more studied that she was so sure he "really liked" her. Isabel told her uncle she had written to him, mentioning also his intention of coming; and the old man, in consequence, left his room earlier than usual and made his appearance at the two o'clock repast. This was by no means an act of vigilance on his part, but the fruit of a benevolent belief that his being of the company might help to cover any conjoined straying away in case Isabel should give their noble visitor another hearing. That personage drove over from Lockleigh and brought the elder of his sisters with him, a measure presumably dictated by reflexions of the same order as Mr. Touchett's. The two visitors were introduced to Miss Stackpole, who, at luncheon, occupied a seat adjoining Lord Warburton's. Isabel, who was nervous and had no relish for the prospect of again arguing the question he had so prematurely opened, could not help admiring his good-humoured self-possession, which quite disguised the symptoms of that preoccupation with her presence it was natural she should suppose him to feel. He neither looked at her nor spoke to her, and the only sign of his emotion was that he avoided meeting her eyes. He had plenty of talk for the others, however, and he appeared to eat his luncheon with discrimination and appetite. Miss Molyneux, who had a smooth, nun-like forehead and wore a large silver cross suspended from her neck, was evidently preoccupied with Henrietta Stackpole, upon whom her eyes constantly rested in a manner suggesting a conflict between deep alienation and yearning wonder. Of the two ladies from Lockleigh she was the one Isabel had liked best; there was such a world of hereditary quiet in her. Isabel was sure moreover that her mild forehead and silver cross referred to some weird Anglican mystery--some delightful reinstitution perhaps of the quaint office of the canoness. She wondered what Miss Molyneux would think of her if she knew Miss Archer had refused her brother; and then she felt sure that Miss Molyneux would never know--that Lord Warburton never told her such things. He was fond of her and kind to her, but on the whole he told her little. Such, at least, was Isabel's theory; when, at table, she was not occupied in conversation she was usually occupied in forming theories about her neighbours. According to Isabel, if Miss Molyneux should ever learn what had passed between Miss Archer and Lord Warburton she would probably be shocked at such a girl's failure to rise; or no, rather (this was our heroine's last position) she would impute to the young American but a due consciousness of inequality. Whatever Isabel might have made of her opportunities, at all events, Henrietta Stackpole was by no means disposed to neglect those in which she now found herself immersed. "Do you know you're the first lord I've ever seen?" she said very promptly to her neighbour. "I suppose you think I'm awfully benighted." "You've escaped seeing some very ugly men," Lord Warburton answered, looking a trifle absently about the table. "Are they very ugly? They try to make us believe in America that they're all handsome and magnificent and that they wear wonderful robes and crowns." "Ah, the robes and crowns are gone out of fashion," said Lord Warburton, "like your tomahawks and revolvers." "I'm sorry for that; I think an aristocracy ought to be splendid," Henrietta declared. "If it's not that, what is it?" "Oh, you know, it isn't much, at the best," her neighbour allowed. "Won't you have a potato?" "I don't care much for these European potatoes. I shouldn't know you from an ordinary American gentleman." "Do talk to me as if I were one," said Lord Warburton. "I don't see how you manage to get on without potatoes; you must find so few things to eat over here." Henrietta was silent a little; there was a chance he was not sincere. "I've had hardly any appetite since I've been here," she went on at last; "so it doesn't much matter. I don't approve of you, you know; I feel as if I ought to tell you that." "Don't approve of me?" "Yes; I don't suppose any one ever said such a thing to you before, did they? I don't approve of lords as an institution. I think the world has got beyond them--far beyond." "Oh, so do I. I don't approve of myself in the least. Sometimes it comes over me--how I should object to myself if I were not myself, don't you know? But that's rather good, by the way--not to be vainglorious." "Why don't you give it up then?" Miss Stackpole enquired. "Give up--a--?" asked Lord Warburton, meeting her harsh inflexion with a very mellow one. "Give up being a lord." "Oh, I'm so little of one! One would really forget all about it if you wretched Americans were not constantly reminding one. However, I do think of giving it up, the little there is left of it, one of these days." "I should like to see you do it!" Henrietta exclaimed rather grimly. "I'll invite you to the ceremony; we'll have a supper and a dance." "Well," said Miss Stackpole, "I like to see all sides. I don't approve of a privileged class, but I like to hear what they have to say for themselves." "Mighty little, as you see!" "I should like to draw you out a little more," Henrietta continued. "But you're always looking away. You're afraid of meeting my eye. I see you want to escape me." "No, I'm only looking for those despised potatoes." "Please explain about that young lady--your sister--then. I don't understand about her. Is she a Lady?" "She's a capital good girl." "I don't like the way you say that--as if you wanted to change the subject. Is her position inferior to yours?" "We neither of us have any position to speak of; but she's better off than I, because she has none of the bother." "Yes, she doesn't look as if she had much bother. I wish I had as little bother as that. You do produce quiet people over here, whatever else you may do." "Ah, you see one takes life easily, on the whole," said Lord Warburton. "And then you know we're very dull. Ah, we can be dull when we try!" "I should advise you to try something else. I shouldn't know what to talk to your sister about; she looks so different. Is that silver cross a badge?" "A badge?" "A sign of rank." Lord Warburton's glance had wandered a good deal, but at this it met the gaze of his neighbour. "Oh yes," he answered in a moment; "the women go in for those things. The silver cross is worn by the eldest daughters of Viscounts." Which was his harmless revenge for having occasionally had his credulity too easily engaged in America. After luncheon he proposed to Isabel to come into the gallery and look at the pictures; and though she knew he had seen the pictures twenty times she complied without criticising this pretext. Her conscience now was very easy; ever since she sent him her letter she had felt particularly light of spirit. He walked slowly to the end of the gallery, staring at its contents and saying nothing; and then he suddenly broke out: "I hoped you wouldn't write to me that way." "It was the only way, Lord Warburton," said the girl. "Do try and believe that." "If I could believe it of course I should let you alone. But we can't believe by willing it; and I confess I don't understand. I could understand your disliking me; that I could understand well. But that you should admit you do--" "What have I admitted?" Isabel interrupted, turning slightly pale. "That you think me a good fellow; isn't that it?" She said nothing, and he went on: "You don't seem to have any reason, and that gives me a sense of injustice." "I have a reason, Lord Warburton." She said it in a tone that made his heart contract. "I should like very much to know it." "I'll tell you some day when there's more to show for it." "Excuse my saying that in the mean time I must doubt of it." "You make me very unhappy," said Isabel. "I'm not sorry for that; it may help you to know how I feel. Will you kindly answer me a question?" Isabel made no audible assent, but he apparently saw in her eyes something that gave him courage to go on. "Do you prefer some one else?" "That's a question I'd rather not answer." "Ah, you do then!" her suitor murmured with bitterness. The bitterness touched her, and she cried out: "You're mistaken! I don't." He sat down on a bench, unceremoniously, doggedly, like a man in trouble; leaning his elbows on his knees and staring at the floor. "I can't even be glad of that," he said at last, throwing himself back against the wall; "for that would be an excuse." She raised her eyebrows in surprise. "An excuse? Must I excuse myself?" He paid, however, no answer to the question. Another idea had come into his head. "Is it my political opinions? Do you think I go too far?" "I can't object to your political opinions, because I don't understand them." "You don't care what I think!" he cried, getting up. "It's all the same to you." Isabel walked to the other side of the gallery and stood there showing him her charming back, her light slim figure, the length of her white neck as she bent her head, and the density of her dark braids. She stopped in front of a small picture as if for the purpose of examining it; and there was something so young and free in her movement that her very pliancy seemed to mock at him. Her eyes, however, saw nothing; they had suddenly been suffused with tears. In a moment he followed her, and by this time she had brushed her tears away; but when she turned round her face was pale and the expression of her eyes strange. "That reason that I wouldn't tell you--I'll tell it you after all. It's that I can't escape my fate." "Your fate?" "I should try to escape it if I were to marry you." "I don't understand. Why should not that be your fate as well as anything else?" "Because it's not," said Isabel femininely. "I know it's not. It's not my fate to give up--I know it can't be." Poor Lord Warburton stared, an interrogative point in either eye. "Do you call marrying me giving up?" "Not in the usual sense. It's getting--getting--getting a great deal. But it's giving up other chances." "Other chances for what?" "I don't mean chances to marry," said Isabel, her colour quickly coming back to her. And then she stopped, looking down with a deep frown, as if it were hopeless to attempt to make her meaning clear. "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 mustn't--I can't!" cried the girl. "Well, if you're bent on being miserable I don't see why you should make me so. Whatever charms a life of misery may have for you, it has none for me." "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." "By separating yourself from what?" "From life. From the usual chances and dangers, from what most people know and suffer." Lord Warburton broke into a smile that almost denoted hope. "Why, my dear Miss Archer," he began to explain with the most considerate eagerness, "I don't offer you any exoneration from life or from any chances or dangers whatever. I wish I could; depend upon it I would! For what do you take me, pray? Heaven help me, I'm not the Emperor of China! All I offer you is the chance of taking the common lot in a comfortable sort of way. The common lot? Why, I'm devoted to the common lot! Strike an alliance with me, and I promise you that you shall have plenty of it. You shall separate from nothing whatever--not even from your friend Miss Stackpole." "She'd never approve of it," said Isabel, trying to smile and take advantage of this side-issue; despising herself too, not a little, for doing so. "Are we speaking of Miss Stackpole?" his lordship asked impatiently. "I never saw a person judge things on such theoretic grounds." "Now I suppose you're speaking of me," said Isabel with humility; and she turned away again, for she saw Miss Molyneux enter the gallery, accompanied by Henrietta and by Ralph. Lord Warburton's sister addressed him with a certain timidity and reminded him she ought to return home in time for tea, as she was expecting company to partake of it. He made no answer--apparently not having heard her; he was preoccupied, and with good reason. Miss Molyneux--as if he had been Royalty--stood like a lady-in-waiting. "Well, I never, Miss Molyneux!" said Henrietta Stackpole. "If I wanted to go he'd have to go. If I wanted my brother to do a thing he'd have to do it." "Oh, Warburton does everything one wants," Miss Molyneux answered with a quick, shy laugh. "How very many pictures you have!" she went on, turning to Ralph. "They look a good many, because they're all put together," said Ralph. "But it's really a bad way." "Oh, I think it's so nice. I wish we had a gallery at Lockleigh. I'm so very fond of pictures," Miss Molyneux went on, persistently, to Ralph, as if she were afraid Miss Stackpole would address her again. Henrietta appeared at once to fascinate and to frighten her. "Ah yes, pictures are very convenient," said Ralph, who appeared to know better what style of reflexion was acceptable to her. "They're so very pleasant when it rains," the young lady continued. "It has rained of late so very often." "I'm sorry you're going away, Lord Warburton," said Henrietta. "I wanted to get a great deal more out of you." "I'm not going away," Lord Warburton answered. "Your sister says you must. In America the gentlemen obey the ladies." "I'm afraid we have some people to tea," said Miss Molyneux, looking at her brother. "Very good, my dear. We'll go." "I hoped you would resist!" Henrietta exclaimed. "I wanted to see what Miss Molyneux would do." "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." "You must come to Lockleigh again," said Miss Molyneux, very sweetly, to Isabel, ignoring this remark of Isabel's friend. Isabel looked into her quiet eyes a moment, and for that moment seemed to see in their grey depths the reflexion of everything she had rejected in rejecting Lord Warburton--the peace, the kindness, the honour, the possessions, a deep security and a great exclusion. She kissed Miss Molyneux and then she said: "I'm afraid I can never come again." "Never again?" "I'm afraid I'm going away." "Oh, I'm so very sorry," said Miss Molyneux. "I think that's so very wrong of you." Lord Warburton watched this little passage; then he turned away and stared at a picture. Ralph, leaning against the rail before the picture with his hands in his pockets, had for the moment been watching him. "I should like to see you at home," said Henrietta, whom Lord Warburton found beside him. "I should like an hour's talk with you; there are a great many questions I wish to ask you." "I shall be delighted to see you," the proprietor of Lockleigh answered; "but I'm certain not to be able to answer many of your questions. When will you come?" "Whenever Miss Archer will take me. We're thinking of going to London, but we'll go and see you first. I'm determined to get some satisfaction out of you." "If it depends upon Miss Archer I'm afraid you won't get much. She won't come to Lockleigh; she doesn't like the place." "She told me it was lovely!" said Henrietta. Lord Warburton hesitated. "She won't come, all the same. You had better come alone," he added. Henrietta straightened herself, and her large eyes expanded. "Would you make that remark to an English lady?" she enquired with soft asperity. Lord Warburton stared. "Yes, if I liked her enough." "You'd be careful not to like her enough. If Miss Archer won't visit your place again it's because she doesn't want to take me. I know what she thinks of me, and I suppose you think the same--that I oughtn't to bring in individuals." Lord Warburton was at a loss; he had not been made acquainted with Miss Stackpole's professional character and failed to catch her allusion. "Miss Archer has been warning you!" she therefore went on. "Warning me?" "Isn't that why she came off alone with you here--to put you on your guard?" "Oh dear, no," said Lord Warburton brazenly; "our talk had no such solemn character as that." "Well, you've been on your guard--intensely. I suppose it's natural to you; that's just what I wanted to observe. And so, too, Miss Molyneux--she wouldn't commit herself. You have been warned, anyway," Henrietta continued, addressing this young lady; "but for you it wasn't necessary." "I hope not," said Miss Molyneux vaguely. "Miss Stackpole takes notes," Ralph soothingly explained. "She's a great satirist; she sees through us all and she works us up." "Well, I must say I never have had such a collection of bad material!" Henrietta declared, looking from Isabel to Lord Warburton and from this nobleman to his sister and to Ralph. "There's something the matter with you all; you're as dismal as if you had got a bad cable." "You do see through us, Miss Stackpole," said Ralph in a low tone, giving her a little intelligent nod as he led the party out of the gallery. "There's something the matter with us all." Isabel came behind these two; Miss Molyneux, who decidedly liked her immensely, had taken her arm, to walk beside her over the polished floor. Lord Warburton strolled on the other side with his hands behind him and his eyes lowered. For some moments he said nothing; and then, "Is it true you're going to London?" he asked. "I believe it has been arranged." "And when shall you come back?" "In a few days; but probably for a very short time. I'm going to Paris with my aunt." "When, then, shall I see you again?" "Not for a good while," said Isabel. "But some day or other, I hope." "Do you really hope it?" "Very much." He went a few steps in silence; then he stopped and put out his hand. "Good-bye." "Good-bye," said Isabel. Miss Molyneux kissed her again, and she let the two depart. After it, without rejoining Henrietta and Ralph, she retreated to her own room; in which apartment, before dinner, she was found by Mrs. Touchett, who had stopped on her way to the salon. "I may as well tell you," said that lady, "that your uncle has informed me of your relations with Lord Warburton." Isabel considered. "Relations? They're hardly relations. That's the strange part of it: he has seen me but three or four times." "Why did you tell your uncle rather than me?" Mrs. Touchett dispassionately asked. Again the girl hesitated. "Because he knows Lord Warburton better." "Yes, but I know you better." "I'm not sure of that," said Isabel, smiling. "Neither am I, after all; especially when you give me that rather conceited look. One would think you were awfully pleased with yourself and had carried off a prize! I suppose that when you refuse an offer like Lord Warburton's it's because you expect to do something better." "Ah, my uncle didn't say that!" cried Isabel, smiling still.

Ralph and Henrietta do not seem to really get along -- perhaps they might remind us of friends in a TV sitcom who always make fun of each other, never see eye to eye, yet nevertheless get something out of each other's company. Ralph finds it fun to evade straightforward answers to Henrietta's questions about his own identity and function in the world, and Henrietta persists in pinning him down with one. Ralph seems to represent Europeans here -- a sick and idle, but cultured, person -- and Henrietta is the American of the "Future" who is bold, persistent and hard working. This is representative of Henry James' well-known "American Theme" in which Americans arrive in Europe, and seem to offer something new to a decadent culture. But what is it, exactly that they offer? Henrietta seems to offer straightforward, puritan values. In Chapter 12, we have what will be seen as her first great action, her refusal of Lord Warburton's marriage proposal. For any American without a fortune, this would have been seen as a great opportunity: marrying a rich, well respected Lord from England. Why does Isabel reject his marriage proposal? She tells him she has nothing to give: she could mean this in a financial sense, but she could also mean that she believes she must develop as an individual, original and independent person in order to enter into a marriage. She furthermore believes herself to be capable of an even greater opportunity: does this mean she believes another man of greater status will propose to her? Or does she think she will be able to occupy herself in life in some other way? The great idea upon which her ambition settles is unclear. What could it mean to engage in "the free exploration of life" ? It would appear that Isabel's great idea is to assert some sort of independent freedom of character, but the means of expression of such freedom does not seem to be readily available to her. It does not seem to lie in any possible occupation she could have, especially because she is not a very practical person, but rather a theoretical one. It does not seem to lie in her social relations to others, because this seems to mean that she will have to submit to a particular social system thereby losing her freedom. This leads to a more existential question that is being posed in the book: What is freedom? Can it be asserted in any other way, other than negatively? Meanwhile, the fact that Caspar Goodwood has arrived at the same time that Lord Warburton has decided to propose forms something of a climax of the first section of the novel. Isabel is presented with two possible, concrete realizations for her "idea" as to what she will do in life, and she rejects them both, although she rejects them for opposite reasons. One man is not at all likeable, and not at all her ideal; the other is perfectly an ideal of a person, and she likes him perfectly well, but she intuitively feels that she does not want to marry him. Her idea thus assumes expression only negatively here. In Chapter 14, we get some more exploration into Isabel's motivations for rejecting Lord Warburton's marriage proposal. She claims that she does not want to separate herself from "life" - from the usual chances that most people suffer. She seems to have a lust for a vague notion of experience, and she believes such experience cannot be found when one is protected from dangers through marriage. Mrs. Touchett's simple declaration ironically is the most adequate for describing Isabel's rejection -- she does think that she can "do something better." However, Mrs. Touchett is also a character that is not depicted in a flattering light; she is not the kind of person who can explore deep psychological motivations and intimate emotions. Thus we are presented with the contradiction that Isabel's "idea" on the one hand can be described adequately in a superficial manner, but that it nevertheless breeds a lot of psychological interest and vague emotions.

analysis

Madame Merle, who had come to Florence on Mrs. Touchett's arrival at the invitation of this lady--Mrs. Touchett offering her for a month the hospitality of Palazzo Crescentini--the judicious Madame Merle spoke to Isabel afresh about Gilbert Osmond and expressed the hope she might know him; making, however, no such point of the matter as we have seen her do in recommending the girl herself to Mr. Osmond's attention. The reason of this was perhaps that Isabel offered no resistance whatever to Madame Merle's proposal. In Italy, as in England, the lady had a multitude of friends, both among the natives of the country and its heterogeneous visitors. She had mentioned to Isabel most of the people the girl would find it well to "meet"--of course, she said, Isabel could know whomever in the wide world she would--and had placed Mr. Osmond near the top of the list. He was an old friend of her own; she had known him these dozen years; he was one of the cleverest and most agreeable men--well, in Europe simply. He was altogether above the respectable average; quite another affair. He wasn't a professional charmer--far from it, and the effect he produced depended a good deal on the state of his nerves and his spirits. When not in the right mood he could fall as low as any one, saved only by his looking at such hours rather like a demoralised prince in exile. But if he cared or was interested or rightly challenged--just exactly rightly it had to be--then one felt his cleverness and his distinction. Those qualities didn't depend, in him, as in so many people, on his not committing or exposing himself. He had his perversities--which indeed Isabel would find to be the case with all the men really worth knowing--and didn't cause his light to shine equally for all persons. Madame Merle, however, thought she could undertake that for Isabel he would be brilliant. He was easily bored, too easily, and dull people always put him out; but a quick and cultivated girl like Isabel would give him a stimulus which was too absent from his life. At any rate he was a person not to miss. One shouldn't attempt to live in Italy without making a friend of Gilbert Osmond, who knew more about the country than any one except two or three German professors. And if they had more knowledge than he it was he who had most perception and taste--being artistic through and through. Isabel remembered that her friend had spoken of him during their plunge, at Gardencourt, into the deeps of talk, and wondered a little what was the nature of the tie binding these superior spirits. She felt that Madame Merle's ties always somehow had histories, and such an impression was part of the interest created by this inordinate woman. As regards her relations with Mr. Osmond, however, she hinted at nothing but a long-established calm friendship. Isabel said she should be happy to know a person who had enjoyed so high a confidence for so many years. "You ought to see a great many men," Madame Merle remarked; "you ought to see as many as possible, so as to get used to them." "Used to them?" Isabel repeated with that solemn stare which sometimes seemed to proclaim her deficient in the sense of comedy. "Why, I'm not afraid of them--I'm as used to them as the cook to the butcher-boys." "Used to them, I mean, so as to despise them. That's what one comes to with most of them. You'll pick out, for your society, the few whom you don't despise." This was a note of cynicism that Madame Merle didn't often allow herself to sound; but Isabel was not alarmed, for she had never supposed that as one saw more of the world the sentiment of respect became the most active of one's emotions. It was excited, none the less, by the beautiful city of Florence, which pleased her not less than Madame Merle had promised; and if her unassisted perception had not been able to gauge its charms she had clever companions as priests to the mystery. She was--in no want indeed of esthetic illumination, for Ralph found it a joy that renewed his own early passion to act as cicerone to his eager young kinswoman. Madame Merle remained at home; she had seen the treasures of Florence again and again and had always something else to do. But she talked of all things with remarkable vividness of memory--she recalled the right-hand corner of the large Perugino and the position of the hands of the Saint Elizabeth in the picture next to it. She had her opinions as to the character of many famous works of art, differing often from Ralph with great sharpness and defending her interpretations with as much ingenuity as good-humour. Isabel listened to the discussions taking place between the two with a sense that she might derive much benefit from them and that they were among the advantages she couldn't have enjoyed for instance in Albany. In the clear May mornings before the formal breakfast--this repast at Mrs. Touchett's was served at twelve o'clock--she wandered with her cousin through the narrow and sombre Florentine streets, resting a while in the thicker dusk of some historic church or the vaulted chambers of some dispeopled convent. She went to the galleries and palaces; she looked at the pictures and statues that had hitherto been great names to her, and exchanged for a knowledge which was sometimes a limitation a presentiment which proved usually to have been a blank. She performed all those acts of mental prostration in which, on a first visit to Italy, youth and enthusiasm so freely indulge; she felt her heart beat in the presence of immortal genius and knew the sweetness of rising tears in eyes to which faded fresco and darkened marble grew dim. But the return, every day, was even pleasanter than the going forth; the return into the wide, monumental court of the great house in which Mrs. Touchett, many years before, had established herself, and into the high, cool rooms where the carven rafters and pompous frescoes of the sixteenth century looked down on the familiar commodities of the age of advertisement. Mrs. Touchett inhabited an historic building in a narrow street whose very name recalled the strife of medieval factions; 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. Gilbert Osmond came to see Madame Merle, who presented him to the young lady lurking at the other side of the room. Isabel took on this occasion little part in the talk; she scarcely even smiled when the others turned to her invitingly; she sat there as if she had been at the play and had paid even a large sum for her place. Mrs. Touchett was not present, and these two had it, for the effect of brilliancy, all their own way. They talked of the Florentine, the Roman, the cosmopolite world, and might have been distinguished performers figuring for a charity. It all had the rich readiness that would have come from rehearsal. Madame Merle appealed to her as if she had been on the stage, but she could ignore any learnt cue without spoiling the scene--though of course she thus put dreadfully in the wrong the friend who had told Mr. Osmond she could be depended on. This was no matter for once; even if more had been involved she could have made no attempt to shine. There was something in the visitor that checked her and held her in suspense--made it more important she should get an impression of him than that she should produce one herself. Besides, she had little skill in producing an impression which she knew to be expected: nothing could be happier, in general, than to seem dazzling, but she had a perverse unwillingness to glitter by arrangement. Mr. Osmond, to do him justice, had a well-bred air of expecting nothing, a quiet ease that covered everything, even the first show of his own wit. This was the more grateful as his face, his head, was sensitive; he was not handsome, but he was fine, as fine as one of the drawings in the long gallery above the bridge of the Uffizi. And his very voice was fine--the more strangely that, with its clearness, it yet somehow wasn't sweet. This had had really to do with making her abstain from interference. His utterance was the vibration of glass, and if she had put out her finger she might have changed the pitch and spoiled the concert. Yet before he went she had to speak. "Madame Merle," he said, "consents to come up to my hill-top some day next week and drink tea in my garden. It would give me much pleasure if you would come with her. It's thought rather pretty--there's what they call a general view. My daughter too would be so glad--or rather, for she's too young to have strong emotions, I should be so glad--so very glad." And Mr. Osmond paused with a slight air of embarrassment, leaving his sentence unfinished. "I should be so happy if you could know my daughter," he went on a moment afterwards. Isabel replied that she should be delighted to see Miss Osmond and that if Madame Merle would show her the way to the hill-top she should be very grateful. Upon this assurance the visitor took his leave; after which Isabel fully expected her friend would scold her for having been so stupid. But to her surprise that lady, who indeed never fell into the mere matter-of-course, said to her in a few moments, "You were charming, my dear; you were just as one would have wished you. You're never disappointing." A rebuke might possibly have been irritating, though it is much more probable that Isabel would have taken it in good part; but, strange to say, the words that Madame Merle actually used caused her the first feeling of displeasure she had known this ally to excite. "That's more than I intended," she answered coldly. "I'm under no obligation that I know of to charm Mr. Osmond." Madame Merle perceptibly flushed, but we know it was not her habit to retract. "My dear child, I didn't speak for him, poor man; I spoke for yourself. It's not of course a question as to his liking you; it matters little whether he likes you or not! But I thought you liked HIM." "I did," said Isabel honestly. "But I don't see what that matters either." "Everything that concerns you matters to me," Madame Merle returned with her weary nobleness; "especially when at the same time another old friend's concerned." Whatever Isabel's obligations may have been to Mr. Osmond, it must be admitted that she found them sufficient to lead her to put to Ralph sundry questions about him. She thought Ralph's judgements distorted by his trials, but she flattered herself she had learned to make allowance for that. "Do I know him?" said her cousin. "Oh, yes, I 'know' him; not well, but on the whole enough. I've never cultivated his society, and he apparently has never found mine indispensable to his happiness. Who is he, what is he? He's a vague, unexplained American who has been living these thirty years, or less, in Italy. Why do I call him unexplained? Only as a cover for my ignorance; I don't know his antecedents, his family, his origin. For all I do know he may be a prince in disguise; he rather looks like one, by the way--like a prince who has abdicated in a fit of fastidiousness and has been in a state of disgust ever since. He used to live in Rome; but of late years he has taken up his abode here; I remember hearing him say that Rome has grown vulgar. He has a great dread of vulgarity; that's his special line; he hasn't any other that I know of. He lives on his income, which I suspect of not being vulgarly large. He's a poor but honest gentleman that's what he calls himself. He married young and lost his wife, and I believe he has a daughter. He also has a sister, who's married to some small Count or other, of these parts; I remember meeting her of old. She's nicer than he, I should think, but rather impossible. I remember there used to be some stories about her. I don't think I recommend you to know her. But why don't you ask Madame Merle about these people? She knows them all much better than I." "I ask you because I want your opinion as well as hers," said Isabel. "A fig for my opinion! If you fall in love with Mr. Osmond what will you care for that?" "Not much, probably. But meanwhile it has a certain importance. The more information one has about one's dangers the better." "I don't agree to that--it may make them dangers. We know too much about people in these days; we hear too much. Our ears, our minds, our mouths, are stuffed with personalities. Don't mind anything any one tells you about any one else. Judge everyone and everything for yourself." "That's what I try to do," said Isabel "but when you do that people call you conceited." "You're not to mind them--that's precisely my argument; not to mind what they say about yourself any more than what they say about your friend or your enemy." Isabel considered. "I think you're right; but there are some things I can't help minding: for instance when my friend's attacked or when I myself am praised." "Of course you're always at liberty to judge the critic. Judge people as critics, however," Ralph added, "and you'll condemn them all!" "I shall see Mr. Osmond for myself," said Isabel. "I've promised to pay him a visit." "To pay him a visit?" "To go and see his view, his pictures, his daughter--I don't know exactly what. Madame Merle's to take me; she tells me a great many ladies call on him." "Ah, with Madame Merle you may go anywhere, de confiance," said Ralph. "She knows none but the best people." Isabel said no more about Mr. Osmond, but she presently remarked to her cousin that she was not satisfied with his tone about Madame Merle. "It seems to me you insinuate things about her. I don't know what you mean, but if you've any grounds for disliking her I think you should either mention them frankly or else say nothing at all." Ralph, however, resented this charge with more apparent earnestness than he commonly used. "I speak of Madame Merle exactly as I speak to her: with an even exaggerated respect." "Exaggerated, precisely. That's what I complain of." "I do so because Madame Merle's merits are exaggerated." "By whom, pray? By me? If so I do her a poor service." "No, no; by herself." "Ah, I protest!" Isabel earnestly cried. "If ever there was a woman who made small claims--!" "You put your finger on it," Ralph interrupted. "Her modesty's exaggerated. She has no business with small claims--she has a perfect right to make large ones." "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." "A chance for what?" "Well, say to call her a fool! She's the only woman I know who has but that one little fault." Isabel turned away with impatience. "I don't understand you; you're too paradoxical for my plain mind." "Let me explain. When I say she exaggerates I don't mean it in the vulgar sense--that she boasts, overstates, gives too fine an account of herself. I mean literally that she pushes the search for perfection too far--that her merits are in themselves overstrained. She's too good, too kind, too clever, too learned, too accomplished, too everything. She's too complete, in a word. I confess to you that she acts on my nerves and that I feel about her a good deal as that intensely human Athenian felt about Aristides the Just." Isabel looked hard at her cousin; but the mocking spirit, if it lurked in his words, failed on this occasion to peep from his face. "Do you wish Madame Merle to be banished?" "By no means. She's much too good company. I delight in Madame Merle," said Ralph Touchett simply. "You're very odious, sir!" Isabel exclaimed. And then she asked him if he knew anything that was not to the honour of her brilliant friend. "Nothing whatever. Don't you see that's just what I mean? On the character of every one else you may find some little black speck; if I were to take half an hour to it, some day, I've no doubt I should be able to find one on yours. For my own, of course, I'm spotted like a leopard. But on Madame Merle's nothing, nothing, nothing!" "That's just what I think!" said Isabel with a toss of her head. "That is why I like her so much." "She's a capital person for you to know. Since you wish to see the world you couldn't have a better guide." "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. Ralph Touchett took his refreshment wherever he could find it, and he would not have forgiven himself if he had been left wholly unbeguiled by such a mistress of the social art. There are deep-lying sympathies and antipathies, and it may have been that, in spite of the administered justice she enjoyed at his hands, her absence from his mother's house would not have made life barren to him. But Ralph Touchett had learned more or less inscrutably to attend, and there could have been nothing so "sustained" to attend to as the general performance of Madame Merle. He tasted her in sips, he let her stand, with an opportuneness she herself could not have surpassed. There were moments when he felt almost sorry for her; and these, oddly enough, were the moments when his kindness was least demonstrative. He was sure she had been yearningly ambitious and that what she had visibly accomplished was far below her secret measure. She had got herself into perfect training, but had won none of the prizes. She was always plain Madame Merle, the widow of a Swiss negociant, with a small income and a large acquaintance, who stayed with people a great deal and was almost as universally "liked" as some new volume of smooth twaddle. The contrast between this position and any one of some half-dozen others that he supposed to have at various moments engaged her hope had an element of the tragical. His mother thought he got on beautifully with their genial guest; to Mrs. Touchett's sense two persons who dealt so largely in too-ingenious theories of conduct--that is of their own--would have much in common. He had given due consideration to Isabel's intimacy with her eminent friend, having long since made up his mind that he could not, without opposition, keep his cousin to himself; and he made the best of it, as he had done of worse things. He believed it would take care of itself; it wouldn't last forever. Neither of these two superior persons knew the other as well as she supposed, and when each had made an important discovery or two there would be, if not a rupture, at least a relaxation. Meanwhile he was quite willing to admit that the conversation of the elder lady was an advantage to the younger, who had a great deal to learn and would doubtless learn it better from Madame Merle than from some other instructors of the young. It was not probable that Isabel would be injured.

At Mrs. Touchett's place, the Palazzo Crescenti in Florence, Merle comes to visit. She arranges for Isabel and Gilbert Osmond to meet. When Osmond visits the house, Isabel is uncharacteristically silent, finding it more important to get an accurate impression of him than she finds it important to produce her own impression of him. Osmond, in spite of Isabel's silence is interested in her. He invites her to visit his house with Madame Merle sometime. Isabel expects that Madame Merle will scold her for her silence and stupidity when Osmond leaves, but instead Merle tells her that she behaved just as she wished. Isabel feels displeasure at this comment, claiming that she is under no obligation to charm Mr. Osmond. Merle flushes at this. When Isabel asks Ralph about Osmond, Ralph only knows that he is a vague, unexplained American who has lived for thirty years in Italy. He knows that Osmond dreads the vulgar, but other than that he has no special talents. Isabel says that she wants to have more information about him because it is better to know about one's dangers. Ralph responds that knowing that much may actually make people more dangerous. He cautions her to judge for herself. Isabel has noticed that Ralph has something against Madame Merle. When she asks him what he thinks of her, he responds that he feels sorry for Madame Merle, that she was ambitious but unaccomplished. He finds her, in her overall aspect, to be an exaggerated person, never allowing others to have the chance to call her a fool. Ralph thinks to himself that Isabel's friendship with Madame Merle will not last forever, noting that neither person knew the other as well as she supposed. He believes that each will discover the true nature of the other

summary

Madame Merle, who had come to Florence on Mrs. Touchett's arrival at the invitation of this lady--Mrs. Touchett offering her for a month the hospitality of Palazzo Crescentini--the judicious Madame Merle spoke to Isabel afresh about Gilbert Osmond and expressed the hope she might know him; making, however, no such point of the matter as we have seen her do in recommending the girl herself to Mr. Osmond's attention. The reason of this was perhaps that Isabel offered no resistance whatever to Madame Merle's proposal. In Italy, as in England, the lady had a multitude of friends, both among the natives of the country and its heterogeneous visitors. She had mentioned to Isabel most of the people the girl would find it well to "meet"--of course, she said, Isabel could know whomever in the wide world she would--and had placed Mr. Osmond near the top of the list. He was an old friend of her own; she had known him these dozen years; he was one of the cleverest and most agreeable men--well, in Europe simply. He was altogether above the respectable average; quite another affair. He wasn't a professional charmer--far from it, and the effect he produced depended a good deal on the state of his nerves and his spirits. When not in the right mood he could fall as low as any one, saved only by his looking at such hours rather like a demoralised prince in exile. But if he cared or was interested or rightly challenged--just exactly rightly it had to be--then one felt his cleverness and his distinction. Those qualities didn't depend, in him, as in so many people, on his not committing or exposing himself. He had his perversities--which indeed Isabel would find to be the case with all the men really worth knowing--and didn't cause his light to shine equally for all persons. Madame Merle, however, thought she could undertake that for Isabel he would be brilliant. He was easily bored, too easily, and dull people always put him out; but a quick and cultivated girl like Isabel would give him a stimulus which was too absent from his life. At any rate he was a person not to miss. One shouldn't attempt to live in Italy without making a friend of Gilbert Osmond, who knew more about the country than any one except two or three German professors. And if they had more knowledge than he it was he who had most perception and taste--being artistic through and through. Isabel remembered that her friend had spoken of him during their plunge, at Gardencourt, into the deeps of talk, and wondered a little what was the nature of the tie binding these superior spirits. She felt that Madame Merle's ties always somehow had histories, and such an impression was part of the interest created by this inordinate woman. As regards her relations with Mr. Osmond, however, she hinted at nothing but a long-established calm friendship. Isabel said she should be happy to know a person who had enjoyed so high a confidence for so many years. "You ought to see a great many men," Madame Merle remarked; "you ought to see as many as possible, so as to get used to them." "Used to them?" Isabel repeated with that solemn stare which sometimes seemed to proclaim her deficient in the sense of comedy. "Why, I'm not afraid of them--I'm as used to them as the cook to the butcher-boys." "Used to them, I mean, so as to despise them. That's what one comes to with most of them. You'll pick out, for your society, the few whom you don't despise." This was a note of cynicism that Madame Merle didn't often allow herself to sound; but Isabel was not alarmed, for she had never supposed that as one saw more of the world the sentiment of respect became the most active of one's emotions. It was excited, none the less, by the beautiful city of Florence, which pleased her not less than Madame Merle had promised; and if her unassisted perception had not been able to gauge its charms she had clever companions as priests to the mystery. She was--in no want indeed of esthetic illumination, for Ralph found it a joy that renewed his own early passion to act as cicerone to his eager young kinswoman. Madame Merle remained at home; she had seen the treasures of Florence again and again and had always something else to do. But she talked of all things with remarkable vividness of memory--she recalled the right-hand corner of the large Perugino and the position of the hands of the Saint Elizabeth in the picture next to it. She had her opinions as to the character of many famous works of art, differing often from Ralph with great sharpness and defending her interpretations with as much ingenuity as good-humour. Isabel listened to the discussions taking place between the two with a sense that she might derive much benefit from them and that they were among the advantages she couldn't have enjoyed for instance in Albany. In the clear May mornings before the formal breakfast--this repast at Mrs. Touchett's was served at twelve o'clock--she wandered with her cousin through the narrow and sombre Florentine streets, resting a while in the thicker dusk of some historic church or the vaulted chambers of some dispeopled convent. She went to the galleries and palaces; she looked at the pictures and statues that had hitherto been great names to her, and exchanged for a knowledge which was sometimes a limitation a presentiment which proved usually to have been a blank. She performed all those acts of mental prostration in which, on a first visit to Italy, youth and enthusiasm so freely indulge; she felt her heart beat in the presence of immortal genius and knew the sweetness of rising tears in eyes to which faded fresco and darkened marble grew dim. But the return, every day, was even pleasanter than the going forth; the return into the wide, monumental court of the great house in which Mrs. Touchett, many years before, had established herself, and into the high, cool rooms where the carven rafters and pompous frescoes of the sixteenth century looked down on the familiar commodities of the age of advertisement. Mrs. Touchett inhabited an historic building in a narrow street whose very name recalled the strife of medieval factions; 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. Gilbert Osmond came to see Madame Merle, who presented him to the young lady lurking at the other side of the room. Isabel took on this occasion little part in the talk; she scarcely even smiled when the others turned to her invitingly; she sat there as if she had been at the play and had paid even a large sum for her place. Mrs. Touchett was not present, and these two had it, for the effect of brilliancy, all their own way. They talked of the Florentine, the Roman, the cosmopolite world, and might have been distinguished performers figuring for a charity. It all had the rich readiness that would have come from rehearsal. Madame Merle appealed to her as if she had been on the stage, but she could ignore any learnt cue without spoiling the scene--though of course she thus put dreadfully in the wrong the friend who had told Mr. Osmond she could be depended on. This was no matter for once; even if more had been involved she could have made no attempt to shine. There was something in the visitor that checked her and held her in suspense--made it more important she should get an impression of him than that she should produce one herself. Besides, she had little skill in producing an impression which she knew to be expected: nothing could be happier, in general, than to seem dazzling, but she had a perverse unwillingness to glitter by arrangement. Mr. Osmond, to do him justice, had a well-bred air of expecting nothing, a quiet ease that covered everything, even the first show of his own wit. This was the more grateful as his face, his head, was sensitive; he was not handsome, but he was fine, as fine as one of the drawings in the long gallery above the bridge of the Uffizi. And his very voice was fine--the more strangely that, with its clearness, it yet somehow wasn't sweet. This had had really to do with making her abstain from interference. His utterance was the vibration of glass, and if she had put out her finger she might have changed the pitch and spoiled the concert. Yet before he went she had to speak. "Madame Merle," he said, "consents to come up to my hill-top some day next week and drink tea in my garden. It would give me much pleasure if you would come with her. It's thought rather pretty--there's what they call a general view. My daughter too would be so glad--or rather, for she's too young to have strong emotions, I should be so glad--so very glad." And Mr. Osmond paused with a slight air of embarrassment, leaving his sentence unfinished. "I should be so happy if you could know my daughter," he went on a moment afterwards. Isabel replied that she should be delighted to see Miss Osmond and that if Madame Merle would show her the way to the hill-top she should be very grateful. Upon this assurance the visitor took his leave; after which Isabel fully expected her friend would scold her for having been so stupid. But to her surprise that lady, who indeed never fell into the mere matter-of-course, said to her in a few moments, "You were charming, my dear; you were just as one would have wished you. You're never disappointing." A rebuke might possibly have been irritating, though it is much more probable that Isabel would have taken it in good part; but, strange to say, the words that Madame Merle actually used caused her the first feeling of displeasure she had known this ally to excite. "That's more than I intended," she answered coldly. "I'm under no obligation that I know of to charm Mr. Osmond." Madame Merle perceptibly flushed, but we know it was not her habit to retract. "My dear child, I didn't speak for him, poor man; I spoke for yourself. It's not of course a question as to his liking you; it matters little whether he likes you or not! But I thought you liked HIM." "I did," said Isabel honestly. "But I don't see what that matters either." "Everything that concerns you matters to me," Madame Merle returned with her weary nobleness; "especially when at the same time another old friend's concerned." Whatever Isabel's obligations may have been to Mr. Osmond, it must be admitted that she found them sufficient to lead her to put to Ralph sundry questions about him. She thought Ralph's judgements distorted by his trials, but she flattered herself she had learned to make allowance for that. "Do I know him?" said her cousin. "Oh, yes, I 'know' him; not well, but on the whole enough. I've never cultivated his society, and he apparently has never found mine indispensable to his happiness. Who is he, what is he? He's a vague, unexplained American who has been living these thirty years, or less, in Italy. Why do I call him unexplained? Only as a cover for my ignorance; I don't know his antecedents, his family, his origin. For all I do know he may be a prince in disguise; he rather looks like one, by the way--like a prince who has abdicated in a fit of fastidiousness and has been in a state of disgust ever since. He used to live in Rome; but of late years he has taken up his abode here; I remember hearing him say that Rome has grown vulgar. He has a great dread of vulgarity; that's his special line; he hasn't any other that I know of. He lives on his income, which I suspect of not being vulgarly large. He's a poor but honest gentleman that's what he calls himself. He married young and lost his wife, and I believe he has a daughter. He also has a sister, who's married to some small Count or other, of these parts; I remember meeting her of old. She's nicer than he, I should think, but rather impossible. I remember there used to be some stories about her. I don't think I recommend you to know her. But why don't you ask Madame Merle about these people? She knows them all much better than I." "I ask you because I want your opinion as well as hers," said Isabel. "A fig for my opinion! If you fall in love with Mr. Osmond what will you care for that?" "Not much, probably. But meanwhile it has a certain importance. The more information one has about one's dangers the better." "I don't agree to that--it may make them dangers. We know too much about people in these days; we hear too much. Our ears, our minds, our mouths, are stuffed with personalities. Don't mind anything any one tells you about any one else. Judge everyone and everything for yourself." "That's what I try to do," said Isabel "but when you do that people call you conceited." "You're not to mind them--that's precisely my argument; not to mind what they say about yourself any more than what they say about your friend or your enemy." Isabel considered. "I think you're right; but there are some things I can't help minding: for instance when my friend's attacked or when I myself am praised." "Of course you're always at liberty to judge the critic. Judge people as critics, however," Ralph added, "and you'll condemn them all!" "I shall see Mr. Osmond for myself," said Isabel. "I've promised to pay him a visit." "To pay him a visit?" "To go and see his view, his pictures, his daughter--I don't know exactly what. Madame Merle's to take me; she tells me a great many ladies call on him." "Ah, with Madame Merle you may go anywhere, de confiance," said Ralph. "She knows none but the best people." Isabel said no more about Mr. Osmond, but she presently remarked to her cousin that she was not satisfied with his tone about Madame Merle. "It seems to me you insinuate things about her. I don't know what you mean, but if you've any grounds for disliking her I think you should either mention them frankly or else say nothing at all." Ralph, however, resented this charge with more apparent earnestness than he commonly used. "I speak of Madame Merle exactly as I speak to her: with an even exaggerated respect." "Exaggerated, precisely. That's what I complain of." "I do so because Madame Merle's merits are exaggerated." "By whom, pray? By me? If so I do her a poor service." "No, no; by herself." "Ah, I protest!" Isabel earnestly cried. "If ever there was a woman who made small claims--!" "You put your finger on it," Ralph interrupted. "Her modesty's exaggerated. She has no business with small claims--she has a perfect right to make large ones." "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." "A chance for what?" "Well, say to call her a fool! She's the only woman I know who has but that one little fault." Isabel turned away with impatience. "I don't understand you; you're too paradoxical for my plain mind." "Let me explain. When I say she exaggerates I don't mean it in the vulgar sense--that she boasts, overstates, gives too fine an account of herself. I mean literally that she pushes the search for perfection too far--that her merits are in themselves overstrained. She's too good, too kind, too clever, too learned, too accomplished, too everything. She's too complete, in a word. I confess to you that she acts on my nerves and that I feel about her a good deal as that intensely human Athenian felt about Aristides the Just." Isabel looked hard at her cousin; but the mocking spirit, if it lurked in his words, failed on this occasion to peep from his face. "Do you wish Madame Merle to be banished?" "By no means. She's much too good company. I delight in Madame Merle," said Ralph Touchett simply. "You're very odious, sir!" Isabel exclaimed. And then she asked him if he knew anything that was not to the honour of her brilliant friend. "Nothing whatever. Don't you see that's just what I mean? On the character of every one else you may find some little black speck; if I were to take half an hour to it, some day, I've no doubt I should be able to find one on yours. For my own, of course, I'm spotted like a leopard. But on Madame Merle's nothing, nothing, nothing!" "That's just what I think!" said Isabel with a toss of her head. "That is why I like her so much." "She's a capital person for you to know. Since you wish to see the world you couldn't have a better guide." "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. Ralph Touchett took his refreshment wherever he could find it, and he would not have forgiven himself if he had been left wholly unbeguiled by such a mistress of the social art. There are deep-lying sympathies and antipathies, and it may have been that, in spite of the administered justice she enjoyed at his hands, her absence from his mother's house would not have made life barren to him. But Ralph Touchett had learned more or less inscrutably to attend, and there could have been nothing so "sustained" to attend to as the general performance of Madame Merle. He tasted her in sips, he let her stand, with an opportuneness she herself could not have surpassed. There were moments when he felt almost sorry for her; and these, oddly enough, were the moments when his kindness was least demonstrative. He was sure she had been yearningly ambitious and that what she had visibly accomplished was far below her secret measure. She had got herself into perfect training, but had won none of the prizes. She was always plain Madame Merle, the widow of a Swiss negociant, with a small income and a large acquaintance, who stayed with people a great deal and was almost as universally "liked" as some new volume of smooth twaddle. The contrast between this position and any one of some half-dozen others that he supposed to have at various moments engaged her hope had an element of the tragical. His mother thought he got on beautifully with their genial guest; to Mrs. Touchett's sense two persons who dealt so largely in too-ingenious theories of conduct--that is of their own--would have much in common. He had given due consideration to Isabel's intimacy with her eminent friend, having long since made up his mind that he could not, without opposition, keep his cousin to himself; and he made the best of it, as he had done of worse things. He believed it would take care of itself; it wouldn't last forever. Neither of these two superior persons knew the other as well as she supposed, and when each had made an important discovery or two there would be, if not a rupture, at least a relaxation. Meanwhile he was quite willing to admit that the conversation of the elder lady was an advantage to the younger, who had a great deal to learn and would doubtless learn it better from Madame Merle than from some other instructors of the young. It was not probable that Isabel would be injured.

Gilbert Osmond is described as an aesthete. He has impeccable taste, but there seems to be something substantially lacking in him. His house is described in very sinister terms: it is a surface, just a "face" that bars communication with the outside. The architecture and style of his house is a symbol of Osmond's own personality. He is superficial and heartless, but appears to be very cultured. His relationship to his daughter is somewhat odd, because the daughter seems to admire him very much, even though he is not a very warm person. James' description of Osmond as a "coin" that is not in the general circulation is a hint at Osmond's own relation to commodities: he is a selfish hoarder, and has no interest in the communicative aspects of style. The conversation between Merle and Osmond suggests a very intimate nature of their relationship, although why exactly this is the case is left obscure. They seem to be antagonistic in some respects, exchanging insults, but they are also very forthright with each other. They seem to both know each other too intimately, and the suggestion is that they typically do not allow others to have true knowledge of their character. It is unclear why Merle would want Isabel to marry Osmond, since she thinks highly of Isabel and she thinks Osmond is heartless. There is something sinister about Merle's dealings, especially because she declares that she does not know what Isabel is good for, but she only knows what she can "do with them." She makes it sound as if she will use Isabel for some purpose of her own, but we do not know how her plan of getting Isabel and Osmond to marry will benefit her. Isabel is uncharacteristically silent and un-opinionated when she meets Osmond. She is more interested in gaining an accurate impression of him than of forming her own opinion of him -- this seems to be the exact opposite of her usual approach to people. This foreshadows to us that Osmond will be perceived differently than all her other suitors. Why though, is Isabel so reticent when she meets him? Ralph insinuates that Isabel's abundance of second-hand knowledge on his character is the reason she is so interested in him. It seems that Madame Merle has exploited Isabel's imaginative possibilities: the more Isabel thinks she "knows" the less she is able to experience for herself. This brings up an interesting theme that Henry James treats in other of his novels: What is the relationship between knowledge and experience? Does having knowledge of something prejudice us towards the way we experience it? Can one have an experience without having knowledge or prejudice about that thing? His short novel, What Maisie Knew, is one of his more extended explorations of this theme.

analysis

While this sufficiently intimate colloquy (prolonged for some time after we cease to follow it) went forward Madame Merle and her companion, breaking a silence of some duration, had begun to exchange remarks. They were sitting in an attitude of unexpressed expectancy; an attitude especially marked on the part of the Countess Gemini, who, being of a more nervous temperament than her friend, practised with less success the art of disguising impatience. What these ladies were waiting for would not have been apparent and was perhaps not very definite to their own minds. Madame Merle waited for Osmond to release their young friend from her tete-a-tete, and the Countess waited because Madame Merle did. The Countess, moreover, by waiting, found the time ripe for one of her pretty perversities. She might have desired for some minutes to place it. Her brother wandered with Isabel to the end of the garden, to which point her eyes followed them. "My dear," she then observed to her companion, "you'll excuse me if I don't congratulate you!" "Very willingly, for I don't in the least know why you should." "Haven't you a little plan that you think rather well of?" And the Countess nodded at the sequestered couple. Madame Merle's eyes took the same direction; then she looked serenely at her neighbour. "You know I never understand you very well," she smiled. "No one can understand better than you when you wish. I see that just now you DON'T wish." "You say things to me that no one else does," said Madame Merle gravely, yet without bitterness. "You mean things you don't like? Doesn't Osmond sometimes say such things?" "What your brother says has a point." "Yes, a poisoned one sometimes. If you mean that I'm not so clever as he you mustn't think I shall suffer from your sense of our difference. But it will be much better that you should understand me." "Why so?" asked Madame Merle. "To what will it conduce?" "If I don't approve of your plan you ought to know it in order to appreciate the danger of my interfering with it." 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." "No, I've not had time. I've seen the girl but this once," said the Countess, "and the conviction has suddenly come to me. I like her very much." "So do I," Madame Merle mentioned. "You've a strange way of showing it." "Surely I've given her the advantage of making your acquaintance." "That indeed," piped the Countess, "is perhaps the best thing that could happen to her!" Madame Merle said nothing for some time. The Countess's manner was odious, was really low; but it was an old story, and with her eyes upon the violet slope of Monte Morello she gave herself up to reflection. "My dear lady," she finally resumed, "I advise you not to agitate yourself. The matter you allude to concerns three persons much stronger of purpose than yourself." "Three persons? You and Osmond of course. But is Miss Archer also very strong of purpose?" "Quite as much so as we." "Ah then," said the Countess radiantly, "if I convince her it's her interest to resist you she'll do so successfully!" "Resist us? Why do you express yourself so coarsely? She's not exposed to compulsion or deception." "I'm not sure of that. You're capable of anything, you and Osmond. I don't mean Osmond by himself, and I don't mean you by yourself. But together you're dangerous--like some chemical combination." "You had better leave us alone then," smiled Madame Merle. "I don't mean to touch you--but I shall talk to that girl." "My poor Amy," Madame Merle murmured, "I don't see what has got into your head." "I take an interest in her--that's what has got into my head. I like her." Madame Merle hesitated a moment. "I don't think she likes you." The Countess's bright little eyes expanded and her face was set in a grimace. "Ah, you ARE dangerous--even by yourself!" "If you want her to like you don't abuse your brother to her," said Madame Merle. "I don't suppose you pretend she has fallen in love with him in two interviews." Madame Merle looked a moment at Isabel and at the master of the house. He was leaning against the parapet, facing her, his arms folded; and she at present was evidently not lost in the mere impersonal view, persistently as she gazed at it. As Madame Merle watched her she lowered her eyes; she was listening, possibly with a certain embarrassment, while she pressed the point of her parasol into the path. Madame Merle rose from her chair. "Yes, I think so!" she pronounced. The shabby footboy, summoned by Pansy--he might, tarnished as to livery and quaint as to type, have issued from some stray sketch of old-time manners, been "put in" by the brush of a Longhi or a Goya--had come out with a small table and placed it on the grass, and then had gone back and fetched the tea-tray; after which he had again disappeared, to return with a couple of chairs. Pansy had watched these proceedings with the deepest interest, standing with her small hands folded together upon the front of her scanty frock; but she had not presumed to offer assistance. When the tea-table had been arranged, however, she gently approached her aunt. "Do you think papa would object to my making the tea?" The Countess looked at her with a deliberately critical gaze and without answering her question. "My poor niece," she said, "is that your best frock?" "Ah no," Pansy answered, "it's just a little toilette for common occasions." "Do you call it a common occasion when I come to see you?--to say nothing of Madame Merle and the pretty lady yonder." Pansy reflected a moment, turning gravely from one of the persons mentioned to the other. Then her face broke into its perfect smile. "I have a pretty dress, but even that one's very simple. Why should I expose it beside your beautiful things?" "Because it's the prettiest you have; for me you must always wear the prettiest. Please put it on the next time. It seems to me they don't dress you so well as they might." The child sparingly stroked down her antiquated skirt. "It's a good little dress to make tea--don't you think? Don't you believe papa would allow me?" "Impossible for me to say, my child," said the Countess. "For me, your father's ideas are unfathomable. Madame Merle understands them better. Ask HER." Madame Merle smiled with her usual grace. "It's a weighty question--let me think. It seems to me it would please your father to see a careful little daughter making his tea. It's the proper duty of the daughter of the house--when she grows up." "So it seems to me, Madame Merle!" Pansy cried. "You shall see how well I'll make it. A spoonful for each." And she began to busy herself at the table. "Two spoonfuls for me," said the Countess, who, with Madame Merle, remained for some moments watching her. "Listen to me, Pansy," the Countess resumed at last. "I should like to know what you think of your visitor." "Ah, she's not mine--she's papa's," Pansy objected. "Miss Archer came to see you as well," said Madame Merle. "I'm very happy to hear that. She has been very polite to me." "Do you like her then?" the Countess asked. "She's charming--charming," Pansy repeated in her little neat conversational tone. "She pleases me thoroughly." "And how do you think she pleases your father?" "Ah really, Countess!" murmured Madame Merle dissuasively. "Go and call them to tea," she went on to the child. "You'll see if they don't like it!" Pansy declared; and departed to summon the others, who had still lingered at the end of the terrace. "If Miss Archer's to become her mother it's surely interesting to know if the child likes her," said the Countess. "If your brother marries again it won't be for Pansy's sake," Madame Merle replied. "She'll soon be sixteen, and after that she'll begin to need a husband rather than a stepmother." "And will you provide the husband as well?" "I shall certainly take an interest in her marrying fortunately. I imagine you'll do the same." "Indeed I shan't!" cried the Countess. "Why should I, of all women, set such a price on a husband?" "You didn't marry fortunately; that's what I'm speaking of. When I say a husband I mean a good one." "There are no good ones. Osmond won't be a good one." Madame Merle closed her eyes a moment. "You're irritated just now; I don't know why," she presently said. "I don't think you'll really object either to your brother's or to your niece's marrying, when the time comes for them to do so; and as regards Pansy I'm confident that we shall some day have the pleasure of looking for a husband for her together. Your large acquaintance will be a great help." "Yes, I'm irritated," the Countess answered. "You often irritate me. Your own coolness is fabulous. You're a strange woman." "It's much better that we should always act together," Madame Merle went on. "Do you mean that as a threat?" asked the Countess rising. Madame Merle shook her head as for quiet amusement. "No indeed, you've not my coolness!" Isabel and Mr. Osmond were now slowly coming toward them and Isabel had taken Pansy by the hand. "Do you pretend to believe he'd make her happy?" the Countess demanded. "If he should marry Miss Archer I suppose he'd behave like a gentleman." The Countess jerked herself into a succession of attitudes. "Do you mean as most gentlemen behave? That would be much to be thankful for! Of course Osmond's a gentleman; his own sister needn't be reminded of that. But does he think he can marry any girl he happens to pick out? Osmond's a gentleman, of course; but I must say I've NEVER, no, no, never, seen any one of Osmond's pretensions! What they're all founded on is more than I can say. I'm his own sister; I might be supposed to know. Who is he, if you please? What has he ever done? If there had been anything particularly grand in his origin--if he were made of some superior clay--I presume I should have got some inkling of it. If there had been any great honours or splendours in the family I should certainly have made the most of them: 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. Every one'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." "You may say what you please," said Madame Merle, who had listened to this quick outbreak none the less attentively, we may believe, because her eye wandered away from the speaker and her hands busied themselves with adjusting the knots of ribbon on her dress. "You Osmonds are a fine race--your blood must flow from some very pure source. Your brother, like an intelligent man, has had the conviction of it if he has not had the proofs. You're modest about it, but you yourself are extremely distinguished. What do you say about your niece? The child's a little princess. Nevertheless," Madame Merle added, "it won't be an easy matter for Osmond to marry Miss Archer. Yet he can try." "I hope she'll refuse him. It will take him down a little." "We mustn't forget that he is one of the cleverest of men." "I've heard you say that before, but I haven't yet discovered what he has done." "What he has done? He has done nothing that has had to be undone. And he has known how to wait." "To wait for Miss Archer's money? How much of it is there?" "That's not what I mean," said Madame Merle. "Miss Archer has seventy thousand pounds." "Well, it's a pity she's so charming," the Countess declared. "To be sacrificed, any girl would do. She needn't be superior." "If she weren't superior your brother would never look at her. He must have the best." "Yes," returned the Countess as they went forward a little to meet the others, "he's very hard to satisfy. That makes me tremble for her happiness!"

Meanwhile, Madame Merle and Countess Gemini's conversation, occurring at the same time as Isabel and Osmond's conversation, is recounted. Countess Gemini declares that she does not approve of Madame Merle's plan. Madame Merle claims that she has no plan, and that she is not calculating. Countess Gemini declares that she will thwart Merle and Osmond's plan, warning Isabel of her brother's character. Merle warns her that this will simply backfire, and Isabel will dislike Gemini. Merle believes that Isabel has already fallen in love with Osmond, after only two meetings. Madame Merle has Pansy make some tea, and Pansy is very eager to please. Merle and Gemini continue the discussion. Countess Gemini asks Merle if she thinks Osmond will make Isabel happy, and Merle responds that he would at least behave like a gentleman. Merle informs the countess that Isabel has seventy thousand pounds, and Countess Gemini responds by saying that it is a pity that such a charming girl needs to be sacrificed

summary

While this sufficiently intimate colloquy (prolonged for some time after we cease to follow it) went forward Madame Merle and her companion, breaking a silence of some duration, had begun to exchange remarks. They were sitting in an attitude of unexpressed expectancy; an attitude especially marked on the part of the Countess Gemini, who, being of a more nervous temperament than her friend, practised with less success the art of disguising impatience. What these ladies were waiting for would not have been apparent and was perhaps not very definite to their own minds. Madame Merle waited for Osmond to release their young friend from her tete-a-tete, and the Countess waited because Madame Merle did. The Countess, moreover, by waiting, found the time ripe for one of her pretty perversities. She might have desired for some minutes to place it. Her brother wandered with Isabel to the end of the garden, to which point her eyes followed them. "My dear," she then observed to her companion, "you'll excuse me if I don't congratulate you!" "Very willingly, for I don't in the least know why you should." "Haven't you a little plan that you think rather well of?" And the Countess nodded at the sequestered couple. Madame Merle's eyes took the same direction; then she looked serenely at her neighbour. "You know I never understand you very well," she smiled. "No one can understand better than you when you wish. I see that just now you DON'T wish." "You say things to me that no one else does," said Madame Merle gravely, yet without bitterness. "You mean things you don't like? Doesn't Osmond sometimes say such things?" "What your brother says has a point." "Yes, a poisoned one sometimes. If you mean that I'm not so clever as he you mustn't think I shall suffer from your sense of our difference. But it will be much better that you should understand me." "Why so?" asked Madame Merle. "To what will it conduce?" "If I don't approve of your plan you ought to know it in order to appreciate the danger of my interfering with it." 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." "No, I've not had time. I've seen the girl but this once," said the Countess, "and the conviction has suddenly come to me. I like her very much." "So do I," Madame Merle mentioned. "You've a strange way of showing it." "Surely I've given her the advantage of making your acquaintance." "That indeed," piped the Countess, "is perhaps the best thing that could happen to her!" Madame Merle said nothing for some time. The Countess's manner was odious, was really low; but it was an old story, and with her eyes upon the violet slope of Monte Morello she gave herself up to reflection. "My dear lady," she finally resumed, "I advise you not to agitate yourself. The matter you allude to concerns three persons much stronger of purpose than yourself." "Three persons? You and Osmond of course. But is Miss Archer also very strong of purpose?" "Quite as much so as we." "Ah then," said the Countess radiantly, "if I convince her it's her interest to resist you she'll do so successfully!" "Resist us? Why do you express yourself so coarsely? She's not exposed to compulsion or deception." "I'm not sure of that. You're capable of anything, you and Osmond. I don't mean Osmond by himself, and I don't mean you by yourself. But together you're dangerous--like some chemical combination." "You had better leave us alone then," smiled Madame Merle. "I don't mean to touch you--but I shall talk to that girl." "My poor Amy," Madame Merle murmured, "I don't see what has got into your head." "I take an interest in her--that's what has got into my head. I like her." Madame Merle hesitated a moment. "I don't think she likes you." The Countess's bright little eyes expanded and her face was set in a grimace. "Ah, you ARE dangerous--even by yourself!" "If you want her to like you don't abuse your brother to her," said Madame Merle. "I don't suppose you pretend she has fallen in love with him in two interviews." Madame Merle looked a moment at Isabel and at the master of the house. He was leaning against the parapet, facing her, his arms folded; and she at present was evidently not lost in the mere impersonal view, persistently as she gazed at it. As Madame Merle watched her she lowered her eyes; she was listening, possibly with a certain embarrassment, while she pressed the point of her parasol into the path. Madame Merle rose from her chair. "Yes, I think so!" she pronounced. The shabby footboy, summoned by Pansy--he might, tarnished as to livery and quaint as to type, have issued from some stray sketch of old-time manners, been "put in" by the brush of a Longhi or a Goya--had come out with a small table and placed it on the grass, and then had gone back and fetched the tea-tray; after which he had again disappeared, to return with a couple of chairs. Pansy had watched these proceedings with the deepest interest, standing with her small hands folded together upon the front of her scanty frock; but she had not presumed to offer assistance. When the tea-table had been arranged, however, she gently approached her aunt. "Do you think papa would object to my making the tea?" The Countess looked at her with a deliberately critical gaze and without answering her question. "My poor niece," she said, "is that your best frock?" "Ah no," Pansy answered, "it's just a little toilette for common occasions." "Do you call it a common occasion when I come to see you?--to say nothing of Madame Merle and the pretty lady yonder." Pansy reflected a moment, turning gravely from one of the persons mentioned to the other. Then her face broke into its perfect smile. "I have a pretty dress, but even that one's very simple. Why should I expose it beside your beautiful things?" "Because it's the prettiest you have; for me you must always wear the prettiest. Please put it on the next time. It seems to me they don't dress you so well as they might." The child sparingly stroked down her antiquated skirt. "It's a good little dress to make tea--don't you think? Don't you believe papa would allow me?" "Impossible for me to say, my child," said the Countess. "For me, your father's ideas are unfathomable. Madame Merle understands them better. Ask HER." Madame Merle smiled with her usual grace. "It's a weighty question--let me think. It seems to me it would please your father to see a careful little daughter making his tea. It's the proper duty of the daughter of the house--when she grows up." "So it seems to me, Madame Merle!" Pansy cried. "You shall see how well I'll make it. A spoonful for each." And she began to busy herself at the table. "Two spoonfuls for me," said the Countess, who, with Madame Merle, remained for some moments watching her. "Listen to me, Pansy," the Countess resumed at last. "I should like to know what you think of your visitor." "Ah, she's not mine--she's papa's," Pansy objected. "Miss Archer came to see you as well," said Madame Merle. "I'm very happy to hear that. She has been very polite to me." "Do you like her then?" the Countess asked. "She's charming--charming," Pansy repeated in her little neat conversational tone. "She pleases me thoroughly." "And how do you think she pleases your father?" "Ah really, Countess!" murmured Madame Merle dissuasively. "Go and call them to tea," she went on to the child. "You'll see if they don't like it!" Pansy declared; and departed to summon the others, who had still lingered at the end of the terrace. "If Miss Archer's to become her mother it's surely interesting to know if the child likes her," said the Countess. "If your brother marries again it won't be for Pansy's sake," Madame Merle replied. "She'll soon be sixteen, and after that she'll begin to need a husband rather than a stepmother." "And will you provide the husband as well?" "I shall certainly take an interest in her marrying fortunately. I imagine you'll do the same." "Indeed I shan't!" cried the Countess. "Why should I, of all women, set such a price on a husband?" "You didn't marry fortunately; that's what I'm speaking of. When I say a husband I mean a good one." "There are no good ones. Osmond won't be a good one." Madame Merle closed her eyes a moment. "You're irritated just now; I don't know why," she presently said. "I don't think you'll really object either to your brother's or to your niece's marrying, when the time comes for them to do so; and as regards Pansy I'm confident that we shall some day have the pleasure of looking for a husband for her together. Your large acquaintance will be a great help." "Yes, I'm irritated," the Countess answered. "You often irritate me. Your own coolness is fabulous. You're a strange woman." "It's much better that we should always act together," Madame Merle went on. "Do you mean that as a threat?" asked the Countess rising. Madame Merle shook her head as for quiet amusement. "No indeed, you've not my coolness!" Isabel and Mr. Osmond were now slowly coming toward them and Isabel had taken Pansy by the hand. "Do you pretend to believe he'd make her happy?" the Countess demanded. "If he should marry Miss Archer I suppose he'd behave like a gentleman." The Countess jerked herself into a succession of attitudes. "Do you mean as most gentlemen behave? That would be much to be thankful for! Of course Osmond's a gentleman; his own sister needn't be reminded of that. But does he think he can marry any girl he happens to pick out? Osmond's a gentleman, of course; but I must say I've NEVER, no, no, never, seen any one of Osmond's pretensions! What they're all founded on is more than I can say. I'm his own sister; I might be supposed to know. Who is he, if you please? What has he ever done? If there had been anything particularly grand in his origin--if he were made of some superior clay--I presume I should have got some inkling of it. If there had been any great honours or splendours in the family I should certainly have made the most of them: 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. Every one'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." "You may say what you please," said Madame Merle, who had listened to this quick outbreak none the less attentively, we may believe, because her eye wandered away from the speaker and her hands busied themselves with adjusting the knots of ribbon on her dress. "You Osmonds are a fine race--your blood must flow from some very pure source. Your brother, like an intelligent man, has had the conviction of it if he has not had the proofs. You're modest about it, but you yourself are extremely distinguished. What do you say about your niece? The child's a little princess. Nevertheless," Madame Merle added, "it won't be an easy matter for Osmond to marry Miss Archer. Yet he can try." "I hope she'll refuse him. It will take him down a little." "We mustn't forget that he is one of the cleverest of men." "I've heard you say that before, but I haven't yet discovered what he has done." "What he has done? He has done nothing that has had to be undone. And he has known how to wait." "To wait for Miss Archer's money? How much of it is there?" "That's not what I mean," said Madame Merle. "Miss Archer has seventy thousand pounds." "Well, it's a pity she's so charming," the Countess declared. "To be sacrificed, any girl would do. She needn't be superior." "If she weren't superior your brother would never look at her. He must have the best." "Yes," returned the Countess as they went forward a little to meet the others, "he's very hard to satisfy. That makes me tremble for her happiness!"

In Chapter 24, Isabel gets an impression of Osmond's home. Note that she does not see it as so ominous an object as the narrator has previously described the villa. Rather than seeing it as a house with windows that do not allow communication with the world , Isabel's perspective allows the narrator to briefly remark upon the "grave" air of the place, as if one would "need an act of energy to get out" of it once inside . The narrator counterbalances this observation with the remark that Isabel is only thinking about "advancing" though, and her thoughts are not nearly so foreboding. In the previous conversation between Madame Merle and Osmond, the setting has offered a reflection of the atmosphere: something sinister is going on between Madame Merle and Osmond, in this very secluded house. In this scene however, the signs are ignored, or poorly read. Notably Isabel herself realizes that she does not know how to read the people and the objects in the house, as the occasion "signified more than lay on the surface" for her . In other words, the narrator is setting up a contrast between a more objective interpretation of the house and Isabel's more interested, ambitious reading of the house. She wants to see more than lays beyond the surface, she wants to read into the signs, but she believes it is written in a cryptic language. The narrator's previous description of the house signifies that there is not much more than a superficial shell in this house: that signs do not point to a deeper meaning to be interpreted, but rather everything points to keeping the interpreter mystified through its lack of depth. This kind of deception is a reference to the larger deception that aesthetic objects play on people. Aesthetics is the analysis of art; it refers to the philosophical question of why we find something beautiful. So, for example, one can look at a beautiful artistic object and believe that there must be some deeper meaning or some higher "value" that is being referred to in it. One might believe it is a moral value, or an intellectual value, to which the various signs in a painting refer. Or, we could apply the same question to a novel: why do we read? What makes a book worthy of being read? Does it make us more moral people when we read? Or do we learn some higher truth about life? We believe that the signs of fiction might point us in a particular direction in life, give us some guidance. However, by treating aesthetics in the context of a novel, James is hinting at the idea that art is all an illusion. There is a trick being played: it looks like all the signs refer to some deeper meaning, but in fact, they are creating the illusion of depth by means of blocking the reader from pinning a definite interpretation upon them. That is what is happening to Isabel here. She is unable to figure out what values Osmond is referring to, what standards he uses to judge. But she is still interested because she believes there is a value. But if Osmond is revealed to be a bad person with no morality and no higher values, then it will show that she has created the illusion of value from her own inability to interpret the signs. She has tricked herself into believing there is depth, when there is only superficiality. Another theme that is relevant is the relationship between commodities and people. It is notable that many of Henry James' descriptions of characters end up being a comparison between a person and inanimate objects. Here, it seems that Osmond, who has so many nice objects and allows their value to all appreciate here in his own home as if they were collector's items, is comparing a woman to a commodity: "A woman's natural mission is to be where she's most appreciated," he says . This is an eerie description of moral value, with an indication that he is actually referring to financial value. Similarly, Isabel begins to see him as an aesthetic object: a painting with a low-tone. In Chapter 25, we get a sense of what the true motivations of the characters are, beneath their appearances. There is the mention of money and marriage again: Isabel has seventy thousand pounds. But it is not quite clear why Madame Merle would be interested in giving Osmond Isabel's fortune through marriage. What does she have to gain from making this match? As a first time reader, it would be easy to overlook this chapter as the eccentric worries of Countess Gemini, who has been portrayed as a busybody. This foreshadows the true nature of Osmond.

analysis

I may not attempt to report in its fulness our young woman's response to the deep appeal of Rome, to analyse her feelings as she trod the pavement of the Forum or to number her pulsations as she crossed the threshold of Saint Peter's. It is enough to say that her impression was such as might have been expected of a person of her freshness and her eagerness. She had always been fond of history, and here was history in the stones of the street and the atoms of the sunshine. She had an imagination that kindled at the mention of great deeds, and wherever she turned some great deed had been acted. These things strongly moved her, but moved her all inwardly. It seemed to her companions that she talked less than usual, and Ralph Touchett, when he appeared to be looking listlessly and awkwardly over her head, was really dropping on her an intensity of observation. By her own measure she was very happy; she would even have been willing to take these hours for the happiest she was ever to know. The sense of the terrible human past was heavy to her, but that of something altogether contemporary would suddenly give it wings that it could wave in the blue. Her consciousness was so mixed that she scarcely knew where the different parts of it would lead her, and she went about in a repressed ecstasy of contemplation, seeing often in the things she looked at a great deal more than was there, and yet not seeing many of the items enumerated in her Murray. Rome, as Ralph said, confessed to the psychological moment. The herd of reechoing tourists had departed and most of the solemn places had relapsed into solemnity. The sky was a blaze of blue, and the plash of the fountains in their mossy niches had lost its chill and doubled its music. On the corners of the warm, bright streets one stumbled on bundles of flowers. Our friends had gone one afternoon--it was the third of their stay--to look at the latest excavations in the Forum, these labours having been for some time previous largely extended. They had descended from the modern street to the level of the Sacred Way, along which they wandered with a reverence of step which was not the same on the part of each. Henrietta Stackpole was struck with the fact that ancient Rome had been paved a good deal like New York, and even found an analogy between the deep chariot-ruts traceable in the antique street and the overjangled iron grooves which express the intensity of American life. The sun had begun to sink, the air was a golden haze, and the long shadows of broken column and vague pedestal leaned across the field of ruin. Henrietta wandered away with Mr. Bantling, whom it was apparently delightful to her to hear speak of Julius Caesar as a "cheeky old boy," and Ralph addressed such elucidations as he was prepared to offer to the attentive ear of our heroine. One of the humble archeologists who hover about the place had put himself at the disposal of the two, and repeated his lesson with a fluency which the decline of the season had done nothing to impair. A process of digging was on view in a remote corner of the Forum, and he presently remarked that if it should please the signori to go and watch it a little they might see something of interest. The proposal commended itself more to Ralph than to Isabel, weary with much wandering; so that she admonished her companion to satisfy his curiosity while she patiently awaited his return. The hour and the place were much to her taste--she should enjoy being briefly alone. Ralph accordingly went off with the cicerone while Isabel sat down on a prostrate column near the foundations of the Capitol. She wanted a short solitude, but she was not long to enjoy it. Keen as was her interest in the rugged relics of the Roman past that lay scattered about her and in which the corrosion of centuries had still left so much of individual life, her thoughts, after resting a while on these things, had wandered, by a concatenation of stages it might require some subtlety to trace, to regions and objects charged with a more active appeal. From the Roman past to Isabel Archer's future was a long stride, but her imagination had taken it in a single flight and now hovered in slow circles over the nearer and richer field. She was so absorbed in her thoughts, as she bent her eyes upon a row of cracked but not dislocated slabs covering the ground at her feet, that she had not heard the sound of approaching footsteps before a shadow was thrown across the line of her vision. She looked up and saw a gentleman--a gentleman who was not Ralph come back to say that the excavations were a bore. This personage was startled as she was startled; he stood there baring his head to her perceptibly pale surprise. "Lord Warburton!" Isabel exclaimed as she rose. "I had no idea it was you. I turned that corner and came upon you." She looked about her to explain. "I'm alone, but my companions have just left me. My cousin's gone to look at the work over there." "Ah yes; I see." And Lord Warburton's eyes wandered vaguely in the direction she had indicated. He stood firmly before her now; he had recovered his balance and seemed to wish to show it, though very kindly. "Don't let me disturb you," he went on, looking at her dejected pillar. "I'm afraid you're tired." "Yes, I'm rather tired." She hesitated a moment, but sat down again. "Don't let me interrupt you," she added. "Oh dear, I'm quite alone, I've nothing on earth to do. I had no idea you were in Rome. I've just come from the East. I'm only passing through." "You've been making a long journey," said Isabel, who had learned from Ralph that Lord Warburton was absent from England. "Yes, I came abroad for six months--soon after I saw you last. I've been in Turkey and Asia Minor; I came the other day from Athens." He managed not to be awkward, but he wasn't easy, and after a longer look at the girl he came down to nature. "Do you wish me to leave you, or will you let me stay a little?" She took it all humanely. "I don't wish you to leave me, Lord Warburton; I'm very glad to see you." "Thank you for saying that. May I sit down?" The fluted shaft on which she had taken her seat would have afforded a resting-place to several persons, and there was plenty of room even for a highly-developed Englishman. This fine specimen of that great class seated himself near our young lady, and in the course of five minutes he had asked her several questions, taken rather at random and to which, as he put some of them twice over, he apparently somewhat missed catching the answer; had given her too some information about himself which was not wasted upon her calmer feminine sense. He repeated more than once that he had not expected to meet her, and it was evident that the encounter touched him in a way that would have made preparation advisable. He began abruptly to pass from the impunity of things to their solemnity, and from their being delightful to their being impossible. He was splendidly sunburnt; even his multitudinous beard had been burnished by the fire of Asia. He was dressed in the loose-fitting, heterogeneous garments in which the English traveller in foreign lands is wont to consult his comfort and affirm his nationality; and with his pleasant steady eyes, his bronzed complexion, fresh beneath its seasoning, his manly figure, his minimising manner and his general air of being a gentleman and an explorer, he was such a representative of the British race as need not in any clime have been disavowed by those who have a kindness for it. Isabel noted these things and was glad she had always liked him. He had kept, evidently in spite of shocks, every one of his merits--properties these partaking of the essence of great decent houses, as one might put it; resembling their innermost fixtures and ornaments, not subject to vulgar shifting and removable only by some whole break-up. They talked of the matters naturally in order; her uncle's death, Ralph's state of health, the way she had passed her winter, her visit to Rome, her return to Florence, her plans for the summer, the hotel she was staying at; and then of Lord Warburton's own adventures, movements, intentions, impressions and present domicile. At last there was a silence, and it said so much more than either had said that it scarce needed his final words. "I've written to you several times." "Written to me? I've never had your letters." "I never sent them. I burned them up." "Ah," laughed Isabel, "it was better that you should do that than I!" "I thought you wouldn't care for them," he went on with a simplicity that touched her. "It seemed to me that after all I had no right to trouble you with letters." "I should have been very glad to have news of you. You know how I hoped that--that--" But she stopped; there would be such a flatness in the utterance of her thought. "I know what you're going to say. You hoped we should always remain good friends." This formula, as Lord Warburton uttered it, was certainly flat enough; but then he was interested in making it appear so. She found herself reduced simply to "Please don't talk of all that"; a speech which hardly struck her as improvement on the other. "It's a small consolation to allow me!" her companion exclaimed with force. "I can't pretend to console you," said the girl, who, all still as she sat there, threw herself back with a sort of inward triumph on the answer that had satisfied him so little six months before. He was pleasant, he was powerful, he was gallant; there was no better man than he. But her answer remained. "It's very well you don't try to console me; it wouldn't be in your power," she heard him say through the medium of her strange elation. "I hoped we should meet again, because I had no fear you would attempt to make me feel I had wronged you. But when you do that--the pain's greater than the pleasure." And she got up with a small conscious majesty, looking for her companions. "I don't want to make you feel that; of course I can't say that. I only just want you to know one or two things--in fairness to myself, as it were. I won't return to the subject again. I felt very strongly what I expressed to you last year; I couldn't think of anything else. I tried to forget--energetically, systematically. I tried to take an interest in somebody else. I tell you this because I want you to know I did my duty. I didn't succeed. It was for the same purpose I went abroad--as far away as possible. They say travelling distracts the mind, but it didn't distract mine. I've thought of you perpetually, ever since I last saw you. I'm exactly the same. I love you just as much, and everything I said to you then is just as true. This instant at which I speak to you shows me again exactly how, to my great misfortune, you just insuperably charm me. There--I can't say less. I don't mean, however, to insist; it's only for a moment. I may add that when I came upon you a few minutes since, without the smallest idea of seeing you, I was, upon my honour, in the very act of wishing I knew where you were." He had recovered his self-control, and while he spoke it became complete. He might have been addressing a small committee--making all quietly and clearly a statement of importance; aided by an occasional look at a paper of notes concealed in his hat, which he had not again put on. And the committee, assuredly, would have felt the point proved. "I've often thought of you, Lord Warburton," Isabel answered. "You may be sure I shall always do that." And she added in a tone of which she tried to keep up the kindness and keep down the meaning: "There's no harm in that on either side." They walked along together, and she was prompt to ask about his sisters and request him to let them know she had done so. He made for the moment no further reference to their great question, but dipped again into shallower and safer waters. But he wished to know when she was to leave Rome, and on her mentioning the limit of her stay declared he was glad it was still so distant. "Why do you say that if you yourself are only passing through?" she enquired with some anxiety. "Ah, when I said I was passing through I didn't mean that one would treat Rome as if it were Clapham Junction. To pass through Rome is to stop a week or two." "Say frankly that you mean to stay as long as I do!" His flushed smile, for a little, seemed to sound her. "You won't like that. You're afraid you'll see too much of me." "It doesn't matter what I like. I certainly can't expect you to leave this delightful place on my account. But I confess I'm afraid of you." "Afraid I'll begin again? I promise to be very careful." They had gradually stopped and they stood a moment face to face. "Poor Lord Warburton!" she said with a compassion intended to be good for both of them. "Poor Lord Warburton indeed! But I'll be careful." "You may be unhappy, but you shall not make ME so. That I can't allow." "If I believed I could make you unhappy I think I should try it." At this she walked in advance and he also proceeded. "I'll never say a word to displease you." "Very good. If you do, our friendship's at an end." "Perhaps some day--after a while--you'll give me leave." "Give you leave to make me unhappy?" He hesitated. "To tell you again--" But he checked himself. "I'll keep it down. I'll keep it down always." Ralph Touchett had been joined in his visit to the excavation by Miss Stackpole and her attendant, and these three now emerged from among the mounds of earth and stone collected round the aperture and came into sight of Isabel and her companion. Poor Ralph hailed his friend with joy qualified by wonder, and Henrietta exclaimed in a high voice "Gracious, there's that lord!" Ralph and his English neighbour greeted with the austerity with which, after long separations, English neighbours greet, and Miss Stackpole rested her large intellectual gaze upon the sunburnt traveller. But she soon established her relation to the crisis. "I don't suppose you remember me, sir." "Indeed I do remember you," said Lord Warburton. "I asked you to come and see me, and you never came." "I don't go everywhere I'm asked," Miss Stackpole answered coldly. "Ah well, I won't ask you again," laughed the master of Lockleigh. "If you do I'll go; so be sure!" Lord Warburton, for all his hilarity, seemed sure enough. Mr. Bantling had stood by without claiming a recognition, but he now took occasion to nod to his lordship, who answered him with a friendly "Oh, you here, Bantling?" and a hand-shake. "Well," said Henrietta, "I didn't know you knew him!" "I guess you don't know every one I know," Mr. Bantling rejoined facetiously. "I thought that when an Englishman knew a lord he always told you." "Ah, I'm afraid Bantling was ashamed of me," Lord Warburton laughed again. Isabel took pleasure in that note; she gave a small sigh of relief as they kept their course homeward. The next day was Sunday; she spent her morning over two long letters--one to her sister Lily, the other to Madame Merle; but in neither of these epistles did she mention the fact that a rejected suitor had threatened her with another appeal. Of a Sunday afternoon all good Romans (and the best Romans are often the northern barbarians) follow the custom of going to vespers at Saint Peter's; and it had been agreed among our friends that they would drive together to the great church. After lunch, an hour before the carriage came, Lord Warburton presented himself at the Hotel de Paris and paid a visit to the two ladies, Ralph Touchett and Mr. Bantling having gone out together. The visitor seemed to have wished to give Isabel a proof of his intention to keep the promise made her the evening before; he was both discreet and frank--not even dumbly importunate or remotely intense. He thus left her to judge what a mere good friend he could be. He talked about his travels, about Persia, about Turkey, and when Miss Stackpole asked him whether it would "pay" for her to visit those countries assured her they offered a great field to female enterprise. Isabel did him justice, but she wondered what his purpose was and what he expected to gain even by proving the superior strain of his sincerity. If he expected to melt her by showing what a good fellow he was, he might spare himself the trouble. She knew the superior strain of everything about him, and nothing he could now do was required to light the view. Moreover his being in Rome at all affected her as a complication of the wrong sort--she liked so complications of the right. Nevertheless, when, on bringing his call to a close, he said he too should be at Saint Peter's and should look out for her and her friends, she was obliged to reply that he must follow his convenience. In the church, as she strolled over its tesselated acres, he was the first person she encountered. She had not been one of the superior tourists who are "disappointed" in Saint Peter's and find it smaller than its fame; the first time she passed beneath the huge leathern curtain that strains and bangs at the entrance, the first time she found herself beneath the far-arching dome and saw the light drizzle down through the air thickened with incense and with the reflections of marble and gilt, of mosaic and bronze, her conception of greatness rose and dizzily rose. After this it never lacked space to soar. She gazed and wondered like a child or a peasant, she paid her silent tribute to the seated sublime. Lord Warburton walked beside her and talked of Saint Sophia of Constantinople; she feared for instance that he would end by calling attention to his exemplary conduct. The service had not yet begun, but at Saint Peter's there is much to observe, and as there is something almost profane in the vastness of the place, which seems meant as much for physical as for spiritual exercise, the different figures and groups, the mingled worshippers and spectators, may follow their various intentions without conflict or scandal. In that splendid immensity individual indiscretion carries but a short distance. Isabel and her companions, however, were guilty of none; for though Henrietta was obliged in candour to declare that Michael Angelo's dome suffered by comparison with that of the Capitol at Washington, she addressed her protest chiefly to Mr. Bantling's ear and reserved it in its more accentuated form for the columns of the Interviewer. Isabel made the circuit of the church with his lordship, and as they drew near the choir on the left of the entrance the voices of the Pope's singers were borne to them over the heads of the large number of persons clustered outside the doors. They paused a while on the skirts of this crowd, composed in equal measure of Roman cockneys and inquisitive strangers, and while they stood there the sacred concert went forward. Ralph, with Henrietta and Mr. Bantling, was apparently within, where Isabel, looking beyond the dense group in front of her, saw the afternoon light, silvered by clouds of incense that seemed to mingle with the splendid chant, slope through the embossed recesses of high windows. After a while the singing stopped and then Lord Warburton seemed disposed to move off with her. Isabel could only accompany him; whereupon she found herself confronted with Gilbert Osmond, who appeared to have been standing at a short distance behind her. He now approached with all the forms--he appeared to have multiplied them on this occasion to suit the place. "So you decided to come?" she said as she put out her hand. "Yes, I came last night and called this afternoon at your hotel. They told me you had come here, and I looked about for you." "The others are inside," she decided to say. "I didn't come for the others," he promptly returned. She looked away; Lord Warburton was watching them; perhaps he had heard this. Suddenly she remembered it to be just what he had said to her the morning he came to Gardencourt to ask her to marry him. Mr. Osmond's words had brought the colour to her cheek, and this reminiscence had not the effect of dispelling it. She repaired any betrayal by mentioning to each companion the name of the other, and fortunately at this moment Mr. Bantling emerged from the choir, cleaving the crowd with British valour and followed by Miss Stackpole and Ralph Touchett. I say fortunately, but this is perhaps a superficial view of the matter; since on perceiving the gentleman from Florence Ralph Touchett appeared to take the case as not committing him to joy. He didn't hang back, however, from civility, and presently observed to Isabel, with due benevolence, that she would soon have all her friends about her. Miss Stackpole had met Mr. Osmond in Florence, but she had already found occasion to say to Isabel that she liked him no better than her other admirers--than Mr. Touchett and Lord Warburton, and even than little Mr. Rosier in Paris. "I don't know what it's in you," she had been pleased to remark, "but for a nice girl you do attract the most unnatural people. Mr. Goodwood's the only one I've any respect for, and he's just the one you don't appreciate." "What's your opinion of Saint Peter's?" Mr. Osmond was meanwhile enquiring of our young lady. "It's very large and very bright," she contented herself with replying. "It's too large; it makes one feel like an atom." "Isn't that the right way to feel in the greatest of human temples?" she asked with rather a liking for her phrase. "I suppose it's the right way to feel everywhere, when one IS nobody. But I like it in a church as little as anywhere else." "You ought indeed to be a Pope!" Isabel exclaimed, remembering something he had referred to in Florence. "Ah, I should have enjoyed that!" said Gilbert Osmond. Lord Warburton meanwhile had joined Ralph Touchett, and the two strolled away together. "Who's the fellow speaking to Miss Archer?" his lordship demanded. "His name's Gilbert Osmond--he lives in Florence," Ralph said. "What is he besides?" "Nothing at all. Oh yes, he's an American; but one forgets that--he's so little of one." "Has he known Miss Archer long?" "Three or four weeks." "Does she like him?" "She's trying to find out." "And will she?" "Find out--?" Ralph asked. "Will she like him?" "Do you mean will she accept him?" "Yes," said Lord Warburton after an instant; "I suppose that's what I horribly mean." "Perhaps not if one does nothing to prevent it," Ralph replied. His lordship stared a moment, but apprehended. "Then we must be perfectly quiet?" "As quiet as the grave. And only on the chance!" Ralph added. "The chance she may?" "The chance she may not?" Lord Warburton took this at first in silence, but he spoke again. "Is he awfully clever?" "Awfully," said Ralph. His companion thought. "And what else?" "What more do you want?" Ralph groaned. "Do you mean what more does SHE?" Ralph took him by the arm to turn him: they had to rejoin the others. "She wants nothing that WE can give her." "Ah well, if she won't have You--!" said his lordship handsomely as they went.

Isabel visits Rome with Ralph, Henrietta, and Mr. Bantling. One day, they are visiting some old Roman ruins that are in the process of being excavated. Henrietta and Mr. Bantling wander off together, and Ralph goes to see an archaeological dig that is in process, leaving Isabel alone with her thoughts. She is distracted, thinking little about her outside surroundings, and very much preoccupied with her inner world. However, she has little time to herself because suddenly Lord Warburton appears. They are equally surprised to see one another. He explains that he is stopping in Rome after having travelled to Turkey and the Asia Minor for 6 months. He then cannot help but declare that he still loves her, and he has written her many letters during their time apart, which he has then burned before sending. Isabel is still firm: she wants to be friendly with him but does not want to encourage him. The next day, the group of four and Lord Warburton visit Saint Peter's Basilica. They have completed a walk around the church and are watching a choir singing at the entrance of the church, when Isabel suddenly discovers Gilbert Osmond has been watching her. He tells her that he decided to come, and that her hotel told him that he would find her here. Isabel blushes at the thought of what she had previously said to Lord Warburton when she rejected him, as she juxtaposes it with the image of Gilbert Osmond in Rome with herself. Gilbert Osmond meets the group, and Henrietta declares all of Isabel's companions in Europe to be unlikeable people. Osmond mentions that he thinks being in Saint Peter's makes one feel small. Meanwhile, Lord Warburton asks Ralph privately about Gilbert Osmond: does Ralph think Isabel will accept a marriage proposal from Osmond, if that is indeed his intention. Ralph replies that he thinks she will not accept so long as they do nothing to prevent the marriage

summary

I may not attempt to report in its fulness our young woman's response to the deep appeal of Rome, to analyse her feelings as she trod the pavement of the Forum or to number her pulsations as she crossed the threshold of Saint Peter's. It is enough to say that her impression was such as might have been expected of a person of her freshness and her eagerness. She had always been fond of history, and here was history in the stones of the street and the atoms of the sunshine. She had an imagination that kindled at the mention of great deeds, and wherever she turned some great deed had been acted. These things strongly moved her, but moved her all inwardly. It seemed to her companions that she talked less than usual, and Ralph Touchett, when he appeared to be looking listlessly and awkwardly over her head, was really dropping on her an intensity of observation. By her own measure she was very happy; she would even have been willing to take these hours for the happiest she was ever to know. The sense of the terrible human past was heavy to her, but that of something altogether contemporary would suddenly give it wings that it could wave in the blue. Her consciousness was so mixed that she scarcely knew where the different parts of it would lead her, and she went about in a repressed ecstasy of contemplation, seeing often in the things she looked at a great deal more than was there, and yet not seeing many of the items enumerated in her Murray. Rome, as Ralph said, confessed to the psychological moment. The herd of reechoing tourists had departed and most of the solemn places had relapsed into solemnity. The sky was a blaze of blue, and the plash of the fountains in their mossy niches had lost its chill and doubled its music. On the corners of the warm, bright streets one stumbled on bundles of flowers. Our friends had gone one afternoon--it was the third of their stay--to look at the latest excavations in the Forum, these labours having been for some time previous largely extended. They had descended from the modern street to the level of the Sacred Way, along which they wandered with a reverence of step which was not the same on the part of each. Henrietta Stackpole was struck with the fact that ancient Rome had been paved a good deal like New York, and even found an analogy between the deep chariot-ruts traceable in the antique street and the overjangled iron grooves which express the intensity of American life. The sun had begun to sink, the air was a golden haze, and the long shadows of broken column and vague pedestal leaned across the field of ruin. Henrietta wandered away with Mr. Bantling, whom it was apparently delightful to her to hear speak of Julius Caesar as a "cheeky old boy," and Ralph addressed such elucidations as he was prepared to offer to the attentive ear of our heroine. One of the humble archeologists who hover about the place had put himself at the disposal of the two, and repeated his lesson with a fluency which the decline of the season had done nothing to impair. A process of digging was on view in a remote corner of the Forum, and he presently remarked that if it should please the signori to go and watch it a little they might see something of interest. The proposal commended itself more to Ralph than to Isabel, weary with much wandering; so that she admonished her companion to satisfy his curiosity while she patiently awaited his return. The hour and the place were much to her taste--she should enjoy being briefly alone. Ralph accordingly went off with the cicerone while Isabel sat down on a prostrate column near the foundations of the Capitol. She wanted a short solitude, but she was not long to enjoy it. Keen as was her interest in the rugged relics of the Roman past that lay scattered about her and in which the corrosion of centuries had still left so much of individual life, her thoughts, after resting a while on these things, had wandered, by a concatenation of stages it might require some subtlety to trace, to regions and objects charged with a more active appeal. From the Roman past to Isabel Archer's future was a long stride, but her imagination had taken it in a single flight and now hovered in slow circles over the nearer and richer field. She was so absorbed in her thoughts, as she bent her eyes upon a row of cracked but not dislocated slabs covering the ground at her feet, that she had not heard the sound of approaching footsteps before a shadow was thrown across the line of her vision. She looked up and saw a gentleman--a gentleman who was not Ralph come back to say that the excavations were a bore. This personage was startled as she was startled; he stood there baring his head to her perceptibly pale surprise. "Lord Warburton!" Isabel exclaimed as she rose. "I had no idea it was you. I turned that corner and came upon you." She looked about her to explain. "I'm alone, but my companions have just left me. My cousin's gone to look at the work over there." "Ah yes; I see." And Lord Warburton's eyes wandered vaguely in the direction she had indicated. He stood firmly before her now; he had recovered his balance and seemed to wish to show it, though very kindly. "Don't let me disturb you," he went on, looking at her dejected pillar. "I'm afraid you're tired." "Yes, I'm rather tired." She hesitated a moment, but sat down again. "Don't let me interrupt you," she added. "Oh dear, I'm quite alone, I've nothing on earth to do. I had no idea you were in Rome. I've just come from the East. I'm only passing through." "You've been making a long journey," said Isabel, who had learned from Ralph that Lord Warburton was absent from England. "Yes, I came abroad for six months--soon after I saw you last. I've been in Turkey and Asia Minor; I came the other day from Athens." He managed not to be awkward, but he wasn't easy, and after a longer look at the girl he came down to nature. "Do you wish me to leave you, or will you let me stay a little?" She took it all humanely. "I don't wish you to leave me, Lord Warburton; I'm very glad to see you." "Thank you for saying that. May I sit down?" The fluted shaft on which she had taken her seat would have afforded a resting-place to several persons, and there was plenty of room even for a highly-developed Englishman. This fine specimen of that great class seated himself near our young lady, and in the course of five minutes he had asked her several questions, taken rather at random and to which, as he put some of them twice over, he apparently somewhat missed catching the answer; had given her too some information about himself which was not wasted upon her calmer feminine sense. He repeated more than once that he had not expected to meet her, and it was evident that the encounter touched him in a way that would have made preparation advisable. He began abruptly to pass from the impunity of things to their solemnity, and from their being delightful to their being impossible. He was splendidly sunburnt; even his multitudinous beard had been burnished by the fire of Asia. He was dressed in the loose-fitting, heterogeneous garments in which the English traveller in foreign lands is wont to consult his comfort and affirm his nationality; and with his pleasant steady eyes, his bronzed complexion, fresh beneath its seasoning, his manly figure, his minimising manner and his general air of being a gentleman and an explorer, he was such a representative of the British race as need not in any clime have been disavowed by those who have a kindness for it. Isabel noted these things and was glad she had always liked him. He had kept, evidently in spite of shocks, every one of his merits--properties these partaking of the essence of great decent houses, as one might put it; resembling their innermost fixtures and ornaments, not subject to vulgar shifting and removable only by some whole break-up. They talked of the matters naturally in order; her uncle's death, Ralph's state of health, the way she had passed her winter, her visit to Rome, her return to Florence, her plans for the summer, the hotel she was staying at; and then of Lord Warburton's own adventures, movements, intentions, impressions and present domicile. At last there was a silence, and it said so much more than either had said that it scarce needed his final words. "I've written to you several times." "Written to me? I've never had your letters." "I never sent them. I burned them up." "Ah," laughed Isabel, "it was better that you should do that than I!" "I thought you wouldn't care for them," he went on with a simplicity that touched her. "It seemed to me that after all I had no right to trouble you with letters." "I should have been very glad to have news of you. You know how I hoped that--that--" But she stopped; there would be such a flatness in the utterance of her thought. "I know what you're going to say. You hoped we should always remain good friends." This formula, as Lord Warburton uttered it, was certainly flat enough; but then he was interested in making it appear so. She found herself reduced simply to "Please don't talk of all that"; a speech which hardly struck her as improvement on the other. "It's a small consolation to allow me!" her companion exclaimed with force. "I can't pretend to console you," said the girl, who, all still as she sat there, threw herself back with a sort of inward triumph on the answer that had satisfied him so little six months before. He was pleasant, he was powerful, he was gallant; there was no better man than he. But her answer remained. "It's very well you don't try to console me; it wouldn't be in your power," she heard him say through the medium of her strange elation. "I hoped we should meet again, because I had no fear you would attempt to make me feel I had wronged you. But when you do that--the pain's greater than the pleasure." And she got up with a small conscious majesty, looking for her companions. "I don't want to make you feel that; of course I can't say that. I only just want you to know one or two things--in fairness to myself, as it were. I won't return to the subject again. I felt very strongly what I expressed to you last year; I couldn't think of anything else. I tried to forget--energetically, systematically. I tried to take an interest in somebody else. I tell you this because I want you to know I did my duty. I didn't succeed. It was for the same purpose I went abroad--as far away as possible. They say travelling distracts the mind, but it didn't distract mine. I've thought of you perpetually, ever since I last saw you. I'm exactly the same. I love you just as much, and everything I said to you then is just as true. This instant at which I speak to you shows me again exactly how, to my great misfortune, you just insuperably charm me. There--I can't say less. I don't mean, however, to insist; it's only for a moment. I may add that when I came upon you a few minutes since, without the smallest idea of seeing you, I was, upon my honour, in the very act of wishing I knew where you were." He had recovered his self-control, and while he spoke it became complete. He might have been addressing a small committee--making all quietly and clearly a statement of importance; aided by an occasional look at a paper of notes concealed in his hat, which he had not again put on. And the committee, assuredly, would have felt the point proved. "I've often thought of you, Lord Warburton," Isabel answered. "You may be sure I shall always do that." And she added in a tone of which she tried to keep up the kindness and keep down the meaning: "There's no harm in that on either side." They walked along together, and she was prompt to ask about his sisters and request him to let them know she had done so. He made for the moment no further reference to their great question, but dipped again into shallower and safer waters. But he wished to know when she was to leave Rome, and on her mentioning the limit of her stay declared he was glad it was still so distant. "Why do you say that if you yourself are only passing through?" she enquired with some anxiety. "Ah, when I said I was passing through I didn't mean that one would treat Rome as if it were Clapham Junction. To pass through Rome is to stop a week or two." "Say frankly that you mean to stay as long as I do!" His flushed smile, for a little, seemed to sound her. "You won't like that. You're afraid you'll see too much of me." "It doesn't matter what I like. I certainly can't expect you to leave this delightful place on my account. But I confess I'm afraid of you." "Afraid I'll begin again? I promise to be very careful." They had gradually stopped and they stood a moment face to face. "Poor Lord Warburton!" she said with a compassion intended to be good for both of them. "Poor Lord Warburton indeed! But I'll be careful." "You may be unhappy, but you shall not make ME so. That I can't allow." "If I believed I could make you unhappy I think I should try it." At this she walked in advance and he also proceeded. "I'll never say a word to displease you." "Very good. If you do, our friendship's at an end." "Perhaps some day--after a while--you'll give me leave." "Give you leave to make me unhappy?" He hesitated. "To tell you again--" But he checked himself. "I'll keep it down. I'll keep it down always." Ralph Touchett had been joined in his visit to the excavation by Miss Stackpole and her attendant, and these three now emerged from among the mounds of earth and stone collected round the aperture and came into sight of Isabel and her companion. Poor Ralph hailed his friend with joy qualified by wonder, and Henrietta exclaimed in a high voice "Gracious, there's that lord!" Ralph and his English neighbour greeted with the austerity with which, after long separations, English neighbours greet, and Miss Stackpole rested her large intellectual gaze upon the sunburnt traveller. But she soon established her relation to the crisis. "I don't suppose you remember me, sir." "Indeed I do remember you," said Lord Warburton. "I asked you to come and see me, and you never came." "I don't go everywhere I'm asked," Miss Stackpole answered coldly. "Ah well, I won't ask you again," laughed the master of Lockleigh. "If you do I'll go; so be sure!" Lord Warburton, for all his hilarity, seemed sure enough. Mr. Bantling had stood by without claiming a recognition, but he now took occasion to nod to his lordship, who answered him with a friendly "Oh, you here, Bantling?" and a hand-shake. "Well," said Henrietta, "I didn't know you knew him!" "I guess you don't know every one I know," Mr. Bantling rejoined facetiously. "I thought that when an Englishman knew a lord he always told you." "Ah, I'm afraid Bantling was ashamed of me," Lord Warburton laughed again. Isabel took pleasure in that note; she gave a small sigh of relief as they kept their course homeward. The next day was Sunday; she spent her morning over two long letters--one to her sister Lily, the other to Madame Merle; but in neither of these epistles did she mention the fact that a rejected suitor had threatened her with another appeal. Of a Sunday afternoon all good Romans (and the best Romans are often the northern barbarians) follow the custom of going to vespers at Saint Peter's; and it had been agreed among our friends that they would drive together to the great church. After lunch, an hour before the carriage came, Lord Warburton presented himself at the Hotel de Paris and paid a visit to the two ladies, Ralph Touchett and Mr. Bantling having gone out together. The visitor seemed to have wished to give Isabel a proof of his intention to keep the promise made her the evening before; he was both discreet and frank--not even dumbly importunate or remotely intense. He thus left her to judge what a mere good friend he could be. He talked about his travels, about Persia, about Turkey, and when Miss Stackpole asked him whether it would "pay" for her to visit those countries assured her they offered a great field to female enterprise. Isabel did him justice, but she wondered what his purpose was and what he expected to gain even by proving the superior strain of his sincerity. If he expected to melt her by showing what a good fellow he was, he might spare himself the trouble. She knew the superior strain of everything about him, and nothing he could now do was required to light the view. Moreover his being in Rome at all affected her as a complication of the wrong sort--she liked so complications of the right. Nevertheless, when, on bringing his call to a close, he said he too should be at Saint Peter's and should look out for her and her friends, she was obliged to reply that he must follow his convenience. In the church, as she strolled over its tesselated acres, he was the first person she encountered. She had not been one of the superior tourists who are "disappointed" in Saint Peter's and find it smaller than its fame; the first time she passed beneath the huge leathern curtain that strains and bangs at the entrance, the first time she found herself beneath the far-arching dome and saw the light drizzle down through the air thickened with incense and with the reflections of marble and gilt, of mosaic and bronze, her conception of greatness rose and dizzily rose. After this it never lacked space to soar. She gazed and wondered like a child or a peasant, she paid her silent tribute to the seated sublime. Lord Warburton walked beside her and talked of Saint Sophia of Constantinople; she feared for instance that he would end by calling attention to his exemplary conduct. The service had not yet begun, but at Saint Peter's there is much to observe, and as there is something almost profane in the vastness of the place, which seems meant as much for physical as for spiritual exercise, the different figures and groups, the mingled worshippers and spectators, may follow their various intentions without conflict or scandal. In that splendid immensity individual indiscretion carries but a short distance. Isabel and her companions, however, were guilty of none; for though Henrietta was obliged in candour to declare that Michael Angelo's dome suffered by comparison with that of the Capitol at Washington, she addressed her protest chiefly to Mr. Bantling's ear and reserved it in its more accentuated form for the columns of the Interviewer. Isabel made the circuit of the church with his lordship, and as they drew near the choir on the left of the entrance the voices of the Pope's singers were borne to them over the heads of the large number of persons clustered outside the doors. They paused a while on the skirts of this crowd, composed in equal measure of Roman cockneys and inquisitive strangers, and while they stood there the sacred concert went forward. Ralph, with Henrietta and Mr. Bantling, was apparently within, where Isabel, looking beyond the dense group in front of her, saw the afternoon light, silvered by clouds of incense that seemed to mingle with the splendid chant, slope through the embossed recesses of high windows. After a while the singing stopped and then Lord Warburton seemed disposed to move off with her. Isabel could only accompany him; whereupon she found herself confronted with Gilbert Osmond, who appeared to have been standing at a short distance behind her. He now approached with all the forms--he appeared to have multiplied them on this occasion to suit the place. "So you decided to come?" she said as she put out her hand. "Yes, I came last night and called this afternoon at your hotel. They told me you had come here, and I looked about for you." "The others are inside," she decided to say. "I didn't come for the others," he promptly returned. She looked away; Lord Warburton was watching them; perhaps he had heard this. Suddenly she remembered it to be just what he had said to her the morning he came to Gardencourt to ask her to marry him. Mr. Osmond's words had brought the colour to her cheek, and this reminiscence had not the effect of dispelling it. She repaired any betrayal by mentioning to each companion the name of the other, and fortunately at this moment Mr. Bantling emerged from the choir, cleaving the crowd with British valour and followed by Miss Stackpole and Ralph Touchett. I say fortunately, but this is perhaps a superficial view of the matter; since on perceiving the gentleman from Florence Ralph Touchett appeared to take the case as not committing him to joy. He didn't hang back, however, from civility, and presently observed to Isabel, with due benevolence, that she would soon have all her friends about her. Miss Stackpole had met Mr. Osmond in Florence, but she had already found occasion to say to Isabel that she liked him no better than her other admirers--than Mr. Touchett and Lord Warburton, and even than little Mr. Rosier in Paris. "I don't know what it's in you," she had been pleased to remark, "but for a nice girl you do attract the most unnatural people. Mr. Goodwood's the only one I've any respect for, and he's just the one you don't appreciate." "What's your opinion of Saint Peter's?" Mr. Osmond was meanwhile enquiring of our young lady. "It's very large and very bright," she contented herself with replying. "It's too large; it makes one feel like an atom." "Isn't that the right way to feel in the greatest of human temples?" she asked with rather a liking for her phrase. "I suppose it's the right way to feel everywhere, when one IS nobody. But I like it in a church as little as anywhere else." "You ought indeed to be a Pope!" Isabel exclaimed, remembering something he had referred to in Florence. "Ah, I should have enjoyed that!" said Gilbert Osmond. Lord Warburton meanwhile had joined Ralph Touchett, and the two strolled away together. "Who's the fellow speaking to Miss Archer?" his lordship demanded. "His name's Gilbert Osmond--he lives in Florence," Ralph said. "What is he besides?" "Nothing at all. Oh yes, he's an American; but one forgets that--he's so little of one." "Has he known Miss Archer long?" "Three or four weeks." "Does she like him?" "She's trying to find out." "And will she?" "Find out--?" Ralph asked. "Will she like him?" "Do you mean will she accept him?" "Yes," said Lord Warburton after an instant; "I suppose that's what I horribly mean." "Perhaps not if one does nothing to prevent it," Ralph replied. His lordship stared a moment, but apprehended. "Then we must be perfectly quiet?" "As quiet as the grave. And only on the chance!" Ralph added. "The chance she may?" "The chance she may not?" Lord Warburton took this at first in silence, but he spoke again. "Is he awfully clever?" "Awfully," said Ralph. His companion thought. "And what else?" "What more do you want?" Ralph groaned. "Do you mean what more does SHE?" Ralph took him by the arm to turn him: they had to rejoin the others. "She wants nothing that WE can give her." "Ah well, if she won't have You--!" said his lordship handsomely as they went.

In these chapters, we start to see the significance of one person's view of oneself for determining one's actions and preferences in the world. Isabel likes how she herself is seen by Gilbert Osmond; Gilbert Osmond likes how Lord Warburton sees Isabel, and decides that Isabel is worthy of being admired because of it; and Ralph believes that if he and Lord Warburton do not suggest Isabel that Gilbert Osmond is not a good suitor, that she will not act the contrary part and end up marrying him. Isabel seems to be an original because she likes to act contrary to how people expect her to, so Ralph believes that if they do not want her to marry Gilbert Osmond, she will do the opposite. Yet, Isabel also likes how she is seen from the eyes of Gilbert Osmond -- but she is here trying to act contrary to this vision, as if she wanted to continue asserting her liberty. However, the problem is that Gilbert Osmond does not give her something very concrete to react against: it is instead a vague image, as he does not even propose marriage to her. This allows for her imagination to grow enormously. If he had proposed marriage, it seems that she would have had an immediate reaction to the contrary. It is interesting to consider the growth of Isabel's imagination in the context of the sudden appearances of Lord Warburton and Gilbert Osmond, which are juxtaposed against each other. Lord Warburton interrupts her inner world, as if he is a daydream come alive. He admits that she has appeared to him as if he had wished her into existence, but the set up of the scene implies to us that Isabel herself has wished him into existence. Yet, it is almost as if this exact correspondence to her imagination is something that Isabel cannot accept: she is too ambitious to be satisfied with the concrete reality of any of her ideas, and thus she rejects him. Notably, the background references the buried past: she is in a site where they have archaeological digs. It is as if something real and concrete has been dug up from her past life and appeared here in Rome -- Lord Warburton himself. In contrast, Gilbert Osmond appears in Saint Peter's basilica, described as a place where most people are disappointed. Isabel though is not disappointed, because she is capable of imagining something that is not there, while also ignoring that which is actually present before her eyes. We are led to believe that this is how she sees Osmond: she can imagine a lot of vague things about him, because she is blind to what is right before her eyes, and because she is not able to concretely grasp what he is about. Osmond's vague declaration of love serves to further this pattern. Because he is not concretely offering his hand in marriage, she is instead allowed to imagine further possibilities as to where their relationship might go, to have her own original idea about them, rather than slotting them into a conventional social form. Isabel's imagination works best when it is vague or when it is working against something concrete. But when something corresponds to her imagination, it is as if she is scared of something -- perhaps disappointment of how pathetic reality actually is. Pansy's characterization in Chapter 30 gives plenty of room for Isabel's imagination, but it has little substance in itself. She is described as a blank page, so that Isabel can project what she wishes to upon her. It seems that this might be the seed for Isabel's later acceptance of Osmond's proposal of marriage. Isabel would like to do something for the child - she would like to give Pansy the choice to marry or not. This could be one interpretation of Isabel's psychological motivations for marrying Gilbert Osmond. In Chapter 30, we get an indication of what the social mores were at the time. It was inappropriate for young women to visit unmarried men alone. This is evidence of the Victorian prudery of the time. Isabel makes a good point in noting that Merle has visited Osmond alone and it has not mattered. There is a suggestion though that Merle has made a point of allowing her visits not "to signify." This is an interesting theme throughout the work: what do social conventions signify, and how do they signify? For example, what does it mean when someone acts inappropriately - does it mean that this person is vulgar? Merle hints that she is a master of manipulating the signs of social conventions: she can control how things signify, rather than simply accepting that they signify something obvious. See Sharon Cameron's work for more on how characters manipulate social signs and meaning.

analysis

On the morrow, in the evening, Lord Warburton went again to see his friends at their hotel, and at this establishment he learned that they had gone to the opera. He drove to the opera with the idea of paying them a visit in their box after the easy Italian fashion; and when he had obtained his admittance--it was one of the secondary theatres--looked about the large, bare, ill-lighted house. An act had just terminated and he was at liberty to pursue his quest. After scanning two or three tiers of boxes he perceived in one of the largest of these receptacles a lady whom he easily recognised. Miss Archer was seated facing the stage and partly screened by the curtain of the box; and beside her, leaning back in his chair, was Mr. Gilbert Osmond. They appeared to have the place to themselves, and Warburton supposed their companions had taken advantage of the recess to enjoy the relative coolness of the lobby. He stood a while with his eyes on the interesting pair; he asked himself if he should go up and interrupt the harmony. At last he judged that Isabel had seen him, and this accident determined him. There should be no marked holding off. He took his way to the upper regions and on the staircase met Ralph Touchett slowly descending, his hat at the inclination of ennui and his hands where they usually were. "I saw you below a moment since and was going down to you. I feel lonely and want company," was Ralph's greeting. "You've some that's very good which you've yet deserted." "Do you mean my cousin? Oh, she has a visitor and doesn't want me. Then Miss Stackpole and Bantling have gone out to a cafe to eat an ice--Miss Stackpole delights in an ice. I didn't think they wanted me either. The opera's very bad; the women look like laundresses and sing like peacocks. I feel very low." "You had better go home," Lord Warburton said without affectation. "And leave my young lady in this sad place? Ah no, I must watch over her." "She seems to have plenty of friends." "Yes, that's why I must watch," said Ralph with the same large mock-melancholy. "If she doesn't want you it's probable she doesn't want me." "No, you're different. Go to the box and stay there while I walk about." Lord Warburton went to the box, where Isabel's welcome was as to a friend so honourably old that he vaguely asked himself what queer temporal province she was annexing. He exchanged greetings with Mr. Osmond, to whom he had been introduced the day before and who, after he came in, sat blandly apart and silent, as if repudiating competence in the subjects of allusion now probable. It struck her second visitor that Miss Archer had, in operatic conditions, a radiance, even a slight exaltation; as she was, however, at all times a keenly-glancing, quickly-moving, completely animated young woman, he may have been mistaken on this point. Her talk with him moreover pointed to presence of mind; it expressed a kindness so ingenious and deliberate as to indicate that she was in undisturbed possession of her faculties. Poor Lord Warburton had moments of bewilderment. She had discouraged him, formally, as much as a woman could; what business had she then with such arts and such felicities, above all with such tones of reparation--preparation? Her voice had tricks of sweetness, but why play them on HIM? The others came back; the bare, familiar, trivial opera began again. The box was large, and there was room for him to remain if he would sit a little behind and in the dark. He did so for half an hour, while Mr. Osmond remained in front, leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, just behind Isabel. Lord Warburton heard nothing, and from his gloomy corner saw nothing but the clear profile of this young lady defined against the dim illumination of the house. When there was another interval no one moved. Mr. Osmond talked to Isabel, and Lord Warburton kept his corner. He did so but for a short time, however; after which he got up and bade good-night to the ladies. Isabel said nothing to detain him, but it didn't prevent his being puzzled again. Why should she mark so one of his values--quite the wrong one--when she would have nothing to do with another, which was quite the right? He was angry with himself for being puzzled, and then angry for being angry. Verdi's music did little to comfort him, and he left the theatre and walked homeward, without knowing his way, through the tortuous, tragic streets of Rome, where heavier sorrows than his had been carried under the stars. "What's the character of that gentleman?" Osmond asked of Isabel after he had retired. "Irreproachable--don't you see it?" "He owns about half England; that's his character," Henrietta remarked. "That's what they call a free country!" "Ah, he's a great proprietor? Happy man!" said Gilbert Osmond. "Do you call that happiness--the ownership of wretched human beings?" cried Miss Stackpole. "He owns his tenants and has thousands of them. It's pleasant to own something, but inanimate objects are enough for me. I don't insist on flesh and blood and minds and consciences." "It seems to me you own a human being or two," Mr. Bantling suggested jocosely. "I wonder if Warburton orders his tenants about as you do me." "Lord Warburton's a great radical," Isabel said. "He has very advanced opinions." "He has very advanced stone walls. His park's enclosed by a gigantic iron fence, some thirty miles round," Henrietta announced for the information of Mr. Osmond. "I should like him to converse with a few of our Boston radicals." "Don't they approve of iron fences?" asked Mr. Bantling. "Only to shut up wicked conservatives. I always feel as if I were talking to YOU over something with a neat top-finish of broken glass." "Do you know him well, this unreformed reformer?" Osmond went on, questioning Isabel. "Well enough for all the use I have for him." "And how much of a use is that?" "Well, I like to like him." "'Liking to like'--why, it makes a passion!" said Osmond. "No"--she considered--"keep that for liking to DISlike." "Do you wish to provoke me then," Osmond laughed, "to a passion for HIM?" She said nothing for a moment, but then met the light question with a disproportionate gravity. "No, Mr. Osmond; I don't think I should ever dare to provoke you. Lord Warburton, at any rate," she more easily added, "is a very nice man." "Of great ability?" her friend enquired. "Of excellent ability, and as good as he looks." "As good as he's good-looking do you mean? He's very good-looking. How detestably fortunate!--to be a great English magnate, to be clever and handsome into the bargain, and, by way of finishing off, to enjoy your high favour! That's a man I could envy." Isabel considered him with interest. "You seem to me to be always envying some one. Yesterday it was the Pope; to-day it's poor Lord Warburton." "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." "You'd like to be the Pope?" said Isabel. "I should love it--but I should have gone in for it earlier. But why"--Osmond reverted--"do you speak of your friend as poor?" "Women--when they are very, very good sometimes pity men after they've hurt them; that's their great way of showing kindness," said Ralph, joining in the conversation for the first time and with a cynicism so transparently ingenious as to be virtually innocent. "Pray, have I hurt Lord Warburton?" Isabel asked, raising her eyebrows as if the idea were perfectly fresh. "It serves him right if you have," said Henrietta while the curtain rose for the ballet. Isabel saw no more of her attributive victim for the next twenty-four hours, but on the second day after the visit to the opera she encountered him in the gallery of the Capitol, where he stood before the lion of the collection, the statue of the Dying Gladiator. She had come in with her companions, among whom, on this occasion again, Gilbert Osmond had his place, and the party, having ascended the staircase, entered the first and finest of the rooms. Lord Warburton addressed her alertly enough, but said in a moment that he was leaving the gallery. "And I'm leaving Rome," he added. "I must bid you goodbye." Isabel, inconsequently enough, was now sorry to hear it. This was perhaps because she had ceased to be afraid of his renewing his suit; she was thinking of something else. She was on the point of naming her regret, but she checked herself and simply wished him a happy journey; which made him look at her rather unlightedly. "I'm afraid you'll think me very 'volatile.' I told you the other day I wanted so much to stop." "Oh no; you could easily change your mind." "That's what I have done." "Bon voyage then." "You're in a great hurry to get rid of me," said his lordship quite dismally. "Not in the least. But I hate partings." "You don't care what I do," he went on pitifully. Isabel looked at him a moment. "Ah," she said, "you're not keeping your promise!" He coloured like a boy of fifteen. "If I'm not, then it's because I can't; and that's why I'm going." "Good-bye then." "Good-bye." He lingered still, however. "When shall I see you again?" Isabel hesitated, but soon, as if she had had a happy inspiration: "Some day after you're married." "That will never be. It will be after you are." "That will do as well," she smiled. "Yes, quite as well. Good-bye." They shook hands, and he left her alone in the glorious room, among the shining antique marbles. She sat down in the centre of the circle of these presences, regarding them vaguely, resting her eyes on their beautiful blank faces; listening, as it were, to their eternal silence. It is impossible, in Rome at least, to look long at a great company of Greek sculptures without feeling the effect of their noble quietude; which, as with a high door closed for the ceremony, slowly drops on the spirit the large white mantle of peace. I say in Rome especially, because the Roman air is an exquisite medium for such impressions. The golden sunshine mingles with them, the deep stillness of the past, so vivid yet, though it is nothing but a void full of names, seems to throw a solemn spell upon them. The blinds were partly closed in the windows of the Capitol, and a clear, warm shadow rested on the figures and made them more mildly human. Isabel sat there a long time, under the charm of their motionless grace, wondering to what, of their experience, their absent eyes were open, and how, to our ears, their alien lips would sound. The dark red walls of the room threw them into relief; the polished marble floor reflected their beauty. She had seen them all before, but her enjoyment repeated itself, and it was all the greater because she was glad again, for the time, to be alone. At last, however, her attention lapsed, drawn off by a deeper tide of life. An occasional tourist came in, stopped and stared a moment at the Dying Gladiator, and then passed out of the other door, creaking over the smooth pavement. At the end of half an hour Gilbert Osmond reappeared, apparently in advance of his companions. He strolled toward her slowly, with his hands behind him and his usual enquiring, yet not quite appealing smile. "I'm surprised to find you alone, I thought you had company. "So I have--the best." And she glanced at the Antinous and the Faun. "Do you call them better company than an English peer?" "Ah, my English peer left me some time ago." She got up, speaking with intention a little dryly. Mr. Osmond noted her dryness, which contributed for him to the interest of his question. "I'm afraid that what I heard the other evening is true: you're rather cruel to that nobleman." Isabel looked a moment at the vanquished Gladiator. "It's not true. I'm scrupulously kind." "That's exactly what I mean!" Gilbert Osmond returned, and with such happy hilarity that his joke needs to be explained. We know that he was fond of originals, of rarities, of the superior and the exquisite; and now that he had seen Lord Warburton, whom he thought a very fine example of his race and order, he perceived a new attraction in the idea of taking to himself a young lady who had qualified herself to figure in his collection of choice objects by declining so noble a hand. 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.

The next day Lord Warburton goes to the opera, where he knows he will find Isabel and the others. He spots Isabel in a box with Gilbert Osmond and decides to join her. Lord Warburton then glumly watches the two together during the opera. He feels angry and puzzled. Osmond later asks about Lord Warburton. Upon finding out about his character and his fortune, he declares that he would like to be Lord Warburton. Isabel jokes that he is always envying someone, and Osmond responds that his envy is not dangerous. A day later, Lord Warburton abruptly announces that he is leaving Rome, when he encounters them in the gallery of the Capitol. Isabel, then, left alone, in front of the statue of the Dying Gladiator, feeling the vividness of the past. Isabel wonders about these Greek sculptures around her, wondering what they would say if they were alive. After she is sitting alone for half an hour, Gilbert Osmond appears. Osmond notes that Isabel is quite cruel to Lord Warburton. We learn that Osmond, who is very fond of originals, takes a real liking from the idea that Lord Warburton desires Isabel. He likes the idea of taking a "young lady who had qualified herself to figure in his collection of choice objects by declining so noble a hand". In other words, he thinks of Isabel as a collector's object that he will hoard for himself. She has more value now that she has had the original idea of rejecting such an aristocratic figure as Lord Warburton

summary

On the morrow, in the evening, Lord Warburton went again to see his friends at their hotel, and at this establishment he learned that they had gone to the opera. He drove to the opera with the idea of paying them a visit in their box after the easy Italian fashion; and when he had obtained his admittance--it was one of the secondary theatres--looked about the large, bare, ill-lighted house. An act had just terminated and he was at liberty to pursue his quest. After scanning two or three tiers of boxes he perceived in one of the largest of these receptacles a lady whom he easily recognised. Miss Archer was seated facing the stage and partly screened by the curtain of the box; and beside her, leaning back in his chair, was Mr. Gilbert Osmond. They appeared to have the place to themselves, and Warburton supposed their companions had taken advantage of the recess to enjoy the relative coolness of the lobby. He stood a while with his eyes on the interesting pair; he asked himself if he should go up and interrupt the harmony. At last he judged that Isabel had seen him, and this accident determined him. There should be no marked holding off. He took his way to the upper regions and on the staircase met Ralph Touchett slowly descending, his hat at the inclination of ennui and his hands where they usually were. "I saw you below a moment since and was going down to you. I feel lonely and want company," was Ralph's greeting. "You've some that's very good which you've yet deserted." "Do you mean my cousin? Oh, she has a visitor and doesn't want me. Then Miss Stackpole and Bantling have gone out to a cafe to eat an ice--Miss Stackpole delights in an ice. I didn't think they wanted me either. The opera's very bad; the women look like laundresses and sing like peacocks. I feel very low." "You had better go home," Lord Warburton said without affectation. "And leave my young lady in this sad place? Ah no, I must watch over her." "She seems to have plenty of friends." "Yes, that's why I must watch," said Ralph with the same large mock-melancholy. "If she doesn't want you it's probable she doesn't want me." "No, you're different. Go to the box and stay there while I walk about." Lord Warburton went to the box, where Isabel's welcome was as to a friend so honourably old that he vaguely asked himself what queer temporal province she was annexing. He exchanged greetings with Mr. Osmond, to whom he had been introduced the day before and who, after he came in, sat blandly apart and silent, as if repudiating competence in the subjects of allusion now probable. It struck her second visitor that Miss Archer had, in operatic conditions, a radiance, even a slight exaltation; as she was, however, at all times a keenly-glancing, quickly-moving, completely animated young woman, he may have been mistaken on this point. Her talk with him moreover pointed to presence of mind; it expressed a kindness so ingenious and deliberate as to indicate that she was in undisturbed possession of her faculties. Poor Lord Warburton had moments of bewilderment. She had discouraged him, formally, as much as a woman could; what business had she then with such arts and such felicities, above all with such tones of reparation--preparation? Her voice had tricks of sweetness, but why play them on HIM? The others came back; the bare, familiar, trivial opera began again. The box was large, and there was room for him to remain if he would sit a little behind and in the dark. He did so for half an hour, while Mr. Osmond remained in front, leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, just behind Isabel. Lord Warburton heard nothing, and from his gloomy corner saw nothing but the clear profile of this young lady defined against the dim illumination of the house. When there was another interval no one moved. Mr. Osmond talked to Isabel, and Lord Warburton kept his corner. He did so but for a short time, however; after which he got up and bade good-night to the ladies. Isabel said nothing to detain him, but it didn't prevent his being puzzled again. Why should she mark so one of his values--quite the wrong one--when she would have nothing to do with another, which was quite the right? He was angry with himself for being puzzled, and then angry for being angry. Verdi's music did little to comfort him, and he left the theatre and walked homeward, without knowing his way, through the tortuous, tragic streets of Rome, where heavier sorrows than his had been carried under the stars. "What's the character of that gentleman?" Osmond asked of Isabel after he had retired. "Irreproachable--don't you see it?" "He owns about half England; that's his character," Henrietta remarked. "That's what they call a free country!" "Ah, he's a great proprietor? Happy man!" said Gilbert Osmond. "Do you call that happiness--the ownership of wretched human beings?" cried Miss Stackpole. "He owns his tenants and has thousands of them. It's pleasant to own something, but inanimate objects are enough for me. I don't insist on flesh and blood and minds and consciences." "It seems to me you own a human being or two," Mr. Bantling suggested jocosely. "I wonder if Warburton orders his tenants about as you do me." "Lord Warburton's a great radical," Isabel said. "He has very advanced opinions." "He has very advanced stone walls. His park's enclosed by a gigantic iron fence, some thirty miles round," Henrietta announced for the information of Mr. Osmond. "I should like him to converse with a few of our Boston radicals." "Don't they approve of iron fences?" asked Mr. Bantling. "Only to shut up wicked conservatives. I always feel as if I were talking to YOU over something with a neat top-finish of broken glass." "Do you know him well, this unreformed reformer?" Osmond went on, questioning Isabel. "Well enough for all the use I have for him." "And how much of a use is that?" "Well, I like to like him." "'Liking to like'--why, it makes a passion!" said Osmond. "No"--she considered--"keep that for liking to DISlike." "Do you wish to provoke me then," Osmond laughed, "to a passion for HIM?" She said nothing for a moment, but then met the light question with a disproportionate gravity. "No, Mr. Osmond; I don't think I should ever dare to provoke you. Lord Warburton, at any rate," she more easily added, "is a very nice man." "Of great ability?" her friend enquired. "Of excellent ability, and as good as he looks." "As good as he's good-looking do you mean? He's very good-looking. How detestably fortunate!--to be a great English magnate, to be clever and handsome into the bargain, and, by way of finishing off, to enjoy your high favour! That's a man I could envy." Isabel considered him with interest. "You seem to me to be always envying some one. Yesterday it was the Pope; to-day it's poor Lord Warburton." "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." "You'd like to be the Pope?" said Isabel. "I should love it--but I should have gone in for it earlier. But why"--Osmond reverted--"do you speak of your friend as poor?" "Women--when they are very, very good sometimes pity men after they've hurt them; that's their great way of showing kindness," said Ralph, joining in the conversation for the first time and with a cynicism so transparently ingenious as to be virtually innocent. "Pray, have I hurt Lord Warburton?" Isabel asked, raising her eyebrows as if the idea were perfectly fresh. "It serves him right if you have," said Henrietta while the curtain rose for the ballet. Isabel saw no more of her attributive victim for the next twenty-four hours, but on the second day after the visit to the opera she encountered him in the gallery of the Capitol, where he stood before the lion of the collection, the statue of the Dying Gladiator. She had come in with her companions, among whom, on this occasion again, Gilbert Osmond had his place, and the party, having ascended the staircase, entered the first and finest of the rooms. Lord Warburton addressed her alertly enough, but said in a moment that he was leaving the gallery. "And I'm leaving Rome," he added. "I must bid you goodbye." Isabel, inconsequently enough, was now sorry to hear it. This was perhaps because she had ceased to be afraid of his renewing his suit; she was thinking of something else. She was on the point of naming her regret, but she checked herself and simply wished him a happy journey; which made him look at her rather unlightedly. "I'm afraid you'll think me very 'volatile.' I told you the other day I wanted so much to stop." "Oh no; you could easily change your mind." "That's what I have done." "Bon voyage then." "You're in a great hurry to get rid of me," said his lordship quite dismally. "Not in the least. But I hate partings." "You don't care what I do," he went on pitifully. Isabel looked at him a moment. "Ah," she said, "you're not keeping your promise!" He coloured like a boy of fifteen. "If I'm not, then it's because I can't; and that's why I'm going." "Good-bye then." "Good-bye." He lingered still, however. "When shall I see you again?" Isabel hesitated, but soon, as if she had had a happy inspiration: "Some day after you're married." "That will never be. It will be after you are." "That will do as well," she smiled. "Yes, quite as well. Good-bye." They shook hands, and he left her alone in the glorious room, among the shining antique marbles. She sat down in the centre of the circle of these presences, regarding them vaguely, resting her eyes on their beautiful blank faces; listening, as it were, to their eternal silence. It is impossible, in Rome at least, to look long at a great company of Greek sculptures without feeling the effect of their noble quietude; which, as with a high door closed for the ceremony, slowly drops on the spirit the large white mantle of peace. I say in Rome especially, because the Roman air is an exquisite medium for such impressions. The golden sunshine mingles with them, the deep stillness of the past, so vivid yet, though it is nothing but a void full of names, seems to throw a solemn spell upon them. The blinds were partly closed in the windows of the Capitol, and a clear, warm shadow rested on the figures and made them more mildly human. Isabel sat there a long time, under the charm of their motionless grace, wondering to what, of their experience, their absent eyes were open, and how, to our ears, their alien lips would sound. The dark red walls of the room threw them into relief; the polished marble floor reflected their beauty. She had seen them all before, but her enjoyment repeated itself, and it was all the greater because she was glad again, for the time, to be alone. At last, however, her attention lapsed, drawn off by a deeper tide of life. An occasional tourist came in, stopped and stared a moment at the Dying Gladiator, and then passed out of the other door, creaking over the smooth pavement. At the end of half an hour Gilbert Osmond reappeared, apparently in advance of his companions. He strolled toward her slowly, with his hands behind him and his usual enquiring, yet not quite appealing smile. "I'm surprised to find you alone, I thought you had company. "So I have--the best." And she glanced at the Antinous and the Faun. "Do you call them better company than an English peer?" "Ah, my English peer left me some time ago." She got up, speaking with intention a little dryly. Mr. Osmond noted her dryness, which contributed for him to the interest of his question. "I'm afraid that what I heard the other evening is true: you're rather cruel to that nobleman." Isabel looked a moment at the vanquished Gladiator. "It's not true. I'm scrupulously kind." "That's exactly what I mean!" Gilbert Osmond returned, and with such happy hilarity that his joke needs to be explained. We know that he was fond of originals, of rarities, of the superior and the exquisite; and now that he had seen Lord Warburton, whom he thought a very fine example of his race and order, he perceived a new attraction in the idea of taking to himself a young lady who had qualified herself to figure in his collection of choice objects by declining so noble a hand. 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.

In these chapters, we start to see the significance of one person's view of oneself for determining one's actions and preferences in the world. Isabel likes how she herself is seen by Gilbert Osmond; Gilbert Osmond likes how Lord Warburton sees Isabel, and decides that Isabel is worthy of being admired because of it; and Ralph believes that if he and Lord Warburton do not suggest Isabel that Gilbert Osmond is not a good suitor, that she will not act the contrary part and end up marrying him. Isabel seems to be an original because she likes to act contrary to how people expect her to, so Ralph believes that if they do not want her to marry Gilbert Osmond, she will do the opposite. Yet, Isabel also likes how she is seen from the eyes of Gilbert Osmond -- but she is here trying to act contrary to this vision, as if she wanted to continue asserting her liberty. However, the problem is that Gilbert Osmond does not give her something very concrete to react against: it is instead a vague image, as he does not even propose marriage to her. This allows for her imagination to grow enormously. If he had proposed marriage, it seems that she would have had an immediate reaction to the contrary. It is interesting to consider the growth of Isabel's imagination in the context of the sudden appearances of Lord Warburton and Gilbert Osmond, which are juxtaposed against each other. Lord Warburton interrupts her inner world, as if he is a daydream come alive. He admits that she has appeared to him as if he had wished her into existence, but the set up of the scene implies to us that Isabel herself has wished him into existence. Yet, it is almost as if this exact correspondence to her imagination is something that Isabel cannot accept: she is too ambitious to be satisfied with the concrete reality of any of her ideas, and thus she rejects him. Notably, the background references the buried past: she is in a site where they have archaeological digs. It is as if something real and concrete has been dug up from her past life and appeared here in Rome -- Lord Warburton himself. In contrast, Gilbert Osmond appears in Saint Peter's basilica, described as a place where most people are disappointed. Isabel though is not disappointed, because she is capable of imagining something that is not there, while also ignoring that which is actually present before her eyes. We are led to believe that this is how she sees Osmond: she can imagine a lot of vague things about him, because she is blind to what is right before her eyes, and because she is not able to concretely grasp what he is about. Osmond's vague declaration of love serves to further this pattern. Because he is not concretely offering his hand in marriage, she is instead allowed to imagine further possibilities as to where their relationship might go, to have her own original idea about them, rather than slotting them into a conventional social form. Isabel's imagination works best when it is vague or when it is working against something concrete. But when something corresponds to her imagination, it is as if she is scared of something -- perhaps disappointment of how pathetic reality actually is. Pansy's characterization in Chapter 30 gives plenty of room for Isabel's imagination, but it has little substance in itself. She is described as a blank page, so that Isabel can project what she wishes to upon her. It seems that this might be the seed for Isabel's later acceptance of Osmond's proposal of marriage. Isabel would like to do something for the child - she would like to give Pansy the choice to marry or not. This could be one interpretation of Isabel's psychological motivations for marrying Gilbert Osmond. In Chapter 30, we get an indication of what the social mores were at the time. It was inappropriate for young women to visit unmarried men alone. This is evidence of the Victorian prudery of the time. Isabel makes a good point in noting that Merle has visited Osmond alone and it has not mattered. There is a suggestion though that Merle has made a point of allowing her visits not "to signify." This is an interesting theme throughout the work: what do social conventions signify, and how do they signify? For example, what does it mean when someone acts inappropriately - does it mean that this person is vulgar? Merle hints that she is a master of manipulating the signs of social conventions: she can control how things signify, rather than simply accepting that they signify something obvious. See Sharon Cameron's work for more on how characters manipulate social signs and meaning.

analysis

Ralph Touchett, in talk with his excellent friend, had rather markedly qualified, as we know, his recognition of Gilbert Osmond's personal merits; but he might really have felt himself illiberal in the light of that gentleman's conduct during the rest of the visit to Rome. Osmond spent a portion of each day with Isabel and her companions, and ended by affecting them as the easiest of men to live with. Who wouldn't have seen that he could command, as it were, both tact and gaiety?--which perhaps was exactly why Ralph had made his old-time look of superficial sociability a reproach to him. Even Isabel's invidious kinsman was obliged to admit that he was just now a delightful associate. His good humour was imperturbable, his knowledge of the right fact, his production of the right word, as convenient as the friendly flicker of a match for your cigarette. Clearly he was amused--as amused as a man could be who was so little ever surprised, and that made him almost applausive. It was not that his spirits were visibly high--he would never, in the concert of pleasure, touch the big drum by so much as a knuckle: he had a mortal dislike to the high, ragged note, to what he called random ravings. He thought Miss Archer sometimes of too precipitate a readiness. It was pity she had that fault, because if she had not had it she would really have had none; she would have been as smooth to his general need of her as handled ivory to the palm. If he was not personally loud, however, he was deep, and during these closing days of the Roman May he knew a complacency that matched with slow irregular walks under the pines of the Villa Borghese, among the small sweet meadow-flowers and the mossy marbles. He was pleased with everything; he had never before been pleased with so many things at once. Old impressions, old enjoyments, renewed themselves; one evening, going home to his room at the inn, he wrote down a little sonnet to which he prefixed the title of "Rome Revisited." A day or two later he showed this piece of correct and ingenious verse to Isabel, explaining to her that it was an Italian fashion to commemorate the occasions of life by a tribute to the muse. He took his pleasures in general singly; he was too often--he would have admitted that--too sorely aware of something wrong, something ugly; the fertilising dew of a conceivable felicity too seldom descended on his spirit. But at present he was happy--happier than he had perhaps ever been in his life, and the feeling had a large foundation. This was simply the sense of success--the most agreeable emotion of the human heart. Osmond had never had too much of it; in this respect he had the irritation of satiety, as he knew perfectly well and often reminded himself. "Ah no, I've not been spoiled; certainly I've not been spoiled," he used inwardly to repeat. "If I do succeed before I die I shall thoroughly have earned it." He was too apt to reason as if "earning" this boon consisted above all of covertly aching for it and might be confined to that exercise. Absolutely void of it, also, his career had not been; he might indeed have suggested to a spectator here and there that he was resting on vague laurels. But his triumphs were, some of them, now too old; others had been too easy. The present one had been less arduous than might have been expected, but had been easy--that is had been rapid--only because he had made an altogether exceptional effort, a greater effort than he had believed it in him to make. The desire to have something or other to show for his "parts"--to show somehow or other--had been the dream of his youth; but as the years went on the conditions attached to any marked proof of rarity had affected him more and more as gross and detestable; like the swallowing of mugs of beer to advertise what one could "stand." If an anonymous drawing on a museum wall had been conscious and watchful it might have known this peculiar pleasure of being at last and all of a sudden identified--as from the hand of a great master--by the so high and so unnoticed fact of style. His "style" was what the girl had discovered with a little help; and now, beside herself enjoying it, she should publish it to the world without his having any of the trouble. She should do the thing FOR him, and he would not have waited in vain. Shortly before the time fixed in advance for her departure this young lady received from Mrs. Touchett a telegram running as follows: "Leave Florence 4th June for Bellaggio, and take you if you have not other views. But can't wait if you dawdle in Rome." The dawdling in Rome was very pleasant, but Isabel had different views, and she let her aunt know she would immediately join her. She told Gilbert Osmond that she had done so, and he replied that, spending many of his summers as well as his winters in Italy, he himself would loiter a little longer in the cool shadow of Saint Peter's. He would not return to Florence for ten days more, and in that time she would have started for Bellaggio. It might be months in this case before he should see her again. This exchange took place in the large decorated sitting-room occupied by our friends at the hotel; it was late in the evening, and Ralph Touchett was to take his cousin back to Florence on the morrow. Osmond had found the girl alone; Miss Stackpole had contracted a friendship with a delightful American family on the fourth floor and had mounted the interminable staircase to pay them a visit. Henrietta contracted friendships, in travelling, with great freedom, and had formed in railway-carriages several that were among her most valued ties. Ralph was making arrangements for the morrow's journey, and Isabel sat alone in a wilderness of yellow upholstery. The chairs and sofas were orange; the walls and windows were draped in purple and gilt. The mirrors, the pictures had great flamboyant frames; the ceiling was deeply vaulted and painted over with naked muses and cherubs. For Osmond the place was ugly to distress; the false colours, the sham splendour were like vulgar, bragging, lying talk. Isabel had taken in hand a volume of Ampere, presented, on their arrival in Rome, by Ralph; but though she held it in her lap with her finger vaguely kept in the place she was not impatient to pursue her study. A lamp covered with a drooping veil of pink tissue-paper burned on the table beside her and diffused a strange pale rosiness over the scene. "You say you'll come back; but who knows?" Gilbert Osmond said. "I think you're much more likely to start on your voyage round the world. You're under no obligation to come back; you can do exactly what you choose; you can roam through space." "Well, Italy's a part of space," Isabel answered. "I can take it on the way." "On the way round the world? No, don't do that. Don't put us in a parenthesis--give us a chapter to ourselves. I don't want to see you on your travels. I'd rather see you when they're over. I should like to see you when you're tired and satiated," Osmond added in a moment. "I shall prefer you in that state." Isabel, with her eyes bent, fingered the pages of M. Ampere. "You turn things into ridicule without seeming to do it, though not, I think, without intending it. You've no respect for my travels--you think them ridiculous." "Where do you find that?" She went on in the same tone, fretting the edge of her book with the paper-knife. "You see my ignorance, my blunders, the way I wander about as if the world belonged to me, simply because--because it has been put into my power to do so. You don't think a woman ought to do that. You think it bold and ungraceful." "I think it beautiful," said Osmond. "You know my opinions--I've treated you to enough of them. Don't you remember my telling you that one ought to make one's life a work of art? You looked rather shocked at first; but then I told you that it was exactly what you seemed to me to be trying to do with your own." She looked up from her book. "What you despise most in the world is bad, is stupid art." "Possibly. But yours seem to me very clear and very good." "If I were to go to Japan next winter you would laugh at me," she went on. Osmond gave a smile--a keen one, but not a laugh, for the tone of their conversation was not jocose. Isabel had in fact her solemnity; he had seen it before. "You have one!" "That's exactly what I say. You think such an idea absurd." "I would give my little finger to go to Japan; it's one of the countries I want most to see. Can't you believe that, with my taste for old lacquer?" "I haven't a taste for old lacquer to excuse me," said Isabel. "You've a better excuse--the means of going. You're quite wrong in your theory that I laugh at you. I don't know what has put it into your head." "It wouldn't be remarkable if you did think it ridiculous that I should have the means to travel when you've not; for you know everything and I know nothing." "The more reason why you should travel and learn," smiled Osmond. "Besides," he added as if it were a point to be made, "I don't know everything." Isabel was not struck with the oddity of his saying this gravely; she was thinking that the pleasantest incident of her life--so it pleased her to qualify these too few days in Rome, which she might musingly have likened to the figure of some small princess of one of the ages of dress overmuffled in a mantle of state and dragging a train that it took pages or historians to hold up--that this felicity was coming to an end. That most of the interest of the time had been owing to Mr. Osmond was a reflexion she was not just now at pains to make; she had already done the point abundant justice. But she said to herself that if there were a danger they should never meet again, perhaps after all it would be as well. Happy things don't repeat themselves, and her adventure wore already the changed, the seaward face of some romantic island from which, after feasting on purple grapes, she was putting off while the breeze rose. She might come back to Italy and find him different--this strange man who pleased her just as he was; and it would be better not to come than run the risk of that. But if she was not to come the greater the pity that the chapter was closed; she felt for a moment a pang that touched the source of tears. The sensation kept her silent, and Gilbert Osmond was silent too; he was looking at her. "Go everywhere," he said at last, in a low, kind voice; "do everything; get everything out of life. Be happy,--be triumphant." "What do you mean by being triumphant?" "Well, doing what you like." "To triumph, then, it seems to me, is to fail! Doing all the vain things one likes is often very tiresome." "Exactly," said Osmond with his quiet quickness. "As I intimated just now, you'll be tired some day." He paused a moment and then he went on: "I don't know whether I had better not wait till then for something I want to say to you." "Ah, I can't advise you without knowing what it is. But I'm horrid when I'm tired," Isabel added with due inconsequence. "I don't believe that. You're angry, sometimes--that I can believe, though I've never seen it. But I'm sure you're never 'cross.'" "Not even when I lose my temper?" "You don't lose it--you find it, and that must be beautiful." Osmond spoke with a noble earnestness. "They must be great moments to see." "If I could only find it now!" Isabel nervously cried. "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!" "Tired of hearing it from others?" He sat there raising his eyes to her. "No, you may heed it now or never, as you please. But after all I must say it now." She had turned away, but in the movement she had stopped herself and dropped her gaze upon him. The two remained a while in this situation, exchanging a long look--the large, conscious look of the critical hours of life. Then he got up and came near her, deeply respectful, as if he were afraid he had been too familiar. "I'm absolutely in love with you." He had repeated the announcement in a tone of almost impersonal discretion, like a man who expected very little from it but who spoke for his own needed relief. The tears came into her eyes: this time they obeyed the sharpness of the pang that suggested to her somehow the slipping of a fine bolt--backward, forward, she couldn't have said which. The words he had uttered made him, as he stood there, beautiful and generous, invested him as with the golden air of early autumn; but, morally speaking, she retreated before them--facing him still--as she had retreated in the other cases before a like encounter. "Oh don't say that, please," she answered with an intensity that expressed the dread of having, in this case too, to choose and decide. What made her dread great was precisely the force which, as it would seem, ought to have banished all dread--the sense of something within herself, deep down, that she supposed to be inspired and trustful passion. It was there like a large sum stored in a bank--which there was a terror in having to begin to spend. If she touched it, it would all come out. "I haven't the idea that it will matter much to you," said Osmond. "I've too little to offer you. What I have--it's enough for me; but it's not enough for you. I've neither fortune, nor fame, nor extrinsic advantages of any kind. So I offer nothing. I only tell you because I think it can't offend you, and some day or other it may give you pleasure. It gives me pleasure, I assure you," he went on, standing there before her, considerately inclined to her, turning his hat, which he had taken up, slowly round with a movement which had all the decent tremor of awkwardness and none of its oddity, and presenting to her his firm, refined, slightly ravaged face. "It gives me no pain, because it's perfectly simple. For me you'll always be the most important woman in the world." Isabel looked at herself in this character--looked intently, thinking she filled it with a certain grace. But what she said was not an expression of any such complacency. "You don't offend me; but you ought to remember that, without being offended, one may be incommoded, troubled." "Incommoded," she heard herself saying that, and it struck her as a ridiculous word. But it was what stupidly came to her. "I remember perfectly. Of course you're surprised and startled. But if it's nothing but that, it will pass away. And it will perhaps leave something that I may not be ashamed of." "I don't know what it may leave. You see at all events that I'm not overwhelmed," said Isabel with rather a pale smile. "I'm not too troubled to think. And I think that I'm glad I leave Rome to-morrow." "Of course I don't agree with you there." "I don't at all KNOW you," she added abruptly; and then she coloured as she heard herself saying what she had said almost a year before to Lord Warburton. "If you were not going away you'd know me better." "I shall do that some other time." "I hope so. I'm very easy to know." "No, no," she emphatically answered--"there you're not sincere. You're not easy to know; no one could be less so." "Well," he laughed, "I said that because I know myself. It may be a boast, but I do." "Very likely; but you're very wise." "So are you, Miss Archer!" Osmond exclaimed. "I don't feel so just now. Still, I'm wise enough to think you had better go. Good-night." "God bless you!" said Gilbert Osmond, taking the hand which she failed to surrender. After which he added: "If we meet again you'll find me as you leave me. If we don't I shall be so all the same." "Thank you very much. Good-bye." There was something quietly firm about Isabel's visitor; he might go of his own movement, but wouldn't be dismissed. "There's one thing more. I haven't asked anything of you--not even a thought in the future; you must do me that justice. But there's a little service I should like to ask. I shall not return home for several days; Rome's delightful, and it's a good place for a man in my state of mind. Oh, I know you're sorry to leave it; but you're right to do what your aunt wishes." "She doesn't even wish it!" Isabel broke out strangely. Osmond was apparently on the point of saying something that would match these words, but he changed his mind and rejoined simply: "Ah well, it's proper you should go with her, very proper. Do everything that's proper; I go in for that. Excuse my being so patronising. You say you don't know me, but when you do you'll discover what a worship I have for propriety." "You're not conventional?" Isabel gravely asked. "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." She stood there with lowered eyes. "What service did you speak of just now?" "Go and see my little daughter before you leave Florence. She's alone at the villa; I decided not to send her to my sister, who hasn't at all my ideas. Tell her she must love her poor father very much," said Gilbert Osmond gently. "It will be a great pleasure to me to go," Isabel answered. "I'll tell her what you say. Once more good-bye." On this he took a rapid, respectful leave. When he had gone she stood a moment looking about her and seated herself slowly and with an air of deliberation. She sat there till her companions came back, with folded hands, gazing at the ugly carpet. Her agitation--for it had not diminished--was very still, very deep. What had happened was something that for a week past her imagination had been going forward to meet; but here, when it came, she stopped--that sublime principle somehow broke down. The working of this young lady's spirit was strange, and I can only give it to you as I see it, not hoping to make it seem altogether natural. Her imagination, as I say, now hung back: there was a last vague space it couldn't cross--a dusky, uncertain tract which looked ambiguous and even slightly treacherous, like a moorland seen in the winter twilight. But she was to cross it yet.

Ralph notes that Osmond is a very agreeable companion. We learn that Osmond thinks Isabel is a fine figure, but that she has the fault of being too ready, too precipitate. Osmond feels quite happy and he even writes Isabel a sonnet. He has a sense of success. He had never tried much for such success, but he definitely would have felt he would have earned it, if he had had it. He knew he had style, and he felt Isabel would help him show it to the world. Isabel receives a note from her aunt, with her aunt telling her she will take her to Bellagio. Before she leaves, Osmond tells her that she will probably go and travel the world; that she is under no obligation to come back. He tells her that he has no desire to see her while she is travelling, and would prefer it if she simply visit him once she has done travelling. Isabel accuses him of thinking her travels ridiculous. He replies that this is not true, and that he believes one should make one's life a work of art. He tells her to go out and do what she likes. He tells her that he loves her. Isabel feels herself retreat, shocked by the words. He says that he only tells her because he thinks it will not offend her, and he admits he has nothing to offer her. She will always be the most important woman in the world to him, he declares. The narrator tells her "Isabel looked at herself in this character". She likes the image, but she reacts otherwise. He asks her to just do him a small favor when she returns to her aunt's home: he would like her to visit his daughter, Pansy, whom he has left alone during his trip to Rome. Isabel says she will do him this favor, and she dismisses him. When he leaves her alone, Isabel realizes that her imagination had been going forward to meet this moment, but when it had come, she is entirely shocked. The narrator declares Isabel's reaction odd, mentioning that her imagination is a "vague space" that could not seem to breach dangerous territory

summary

Ralph Touchett, in talk with his excellent friend, had rather markedly qualified, as we know, his recognition of Gilbert Osmond's personal merits; but he might really have felt himself illiberal in the light of that gentleman's conduct during the rest of the visit to Rome. Osmond spent a portion of each day with Isabel and her companions, and ended by affecting them as the easiest of men to live with. Who wouldn't have seen that he could command, as it were, both tact and gaiety?--which perhaps was exactly why Ralph had made his old-time look of superficial sociability a reproach to him. Even Isabel's invidious kinsman was obliged to admit that he was just now a delightful associate. His good humour was imperturbable, his knowledge of the right fact, his production of the right word, as convenient as the friendly flicker of a match for your cigarette. Clearly he was amused--as amused as a man could be who was so little ever surprised, and that made him almost applausive. It was not that his spirits were visibly high--he would never, in the concert of pleasure, touch the big drum by so much as a knuckle: he had a mortal dislike to the high, ragged note, to what he called random ravings. He thought Miss Archer sometimes of too precipitate a readiness. It was pity she had that fault, because if she had not had it she would really have had none; she would have been as smooth to his general need of her as handled ivory to the palm. If he was not personally loud, however, he was deep, and during these closing days of the Roman May he knew a complacency that matched with slow irregular walks under the pines of the Villa Borghese, among the small sweet meadow-flowers and the mossy marbles. He was pleased with everything; he had never before been pleased with so many things at once. Old impressions, old enjoyments, renewed themselves; one evening, going home to his room at the inn, he wrote down a little sonnet to which he prefixed the title of "Rome Revisited." A day or two later he showed this piece of correct and ingenious verse to Isabel, explaining to her that it was an Italian fashion to commemorate the occasions of life by a tribute to the muse. He took his pleasures in general singly; he was too often--he would have admitted that--too sorely aware of something wrong, something ugly; the fertilising dew of a conceivable felicity too seldom descended on his spirit. But at present he was happy--happier than he had perhaps ever been in his life, and the feeling had a large foundation. This was simply the sense of success--the most agreeable emotion of the human heart. Osmond had never had too much of it; in this respect he had the irritation of satiety, as he knew perfectly well and often reminded himself. "Ah no, I've not been spoiled; certainly I've not been spoiled," he used inwardly to repeat. "If I do succeed before I die I shall thoroughly have earned it." He was too apt to reason as if "earning" this boon consisted above all of covertly aching for it and might be confined to that exercise. Absolutely void of it, also, his career had not been; he might indeed have suggested to a spectator here and there that he was resting on vague laurels. But his triumphs were, some of them, now too old; others had been too easy. The present one had been less arduous than might have been expected, but had been easy--that is had been rapid--only because he had made an altogether exceptional effort, a greater effort than he had believed it in him to make. The desire to have something or other to show for his "parts"--to show somehow or other--had been the dream of his youth; but as the years went on the conditions attached to any marked proof of rarity had affected him more and more as gross and detestable; like the swallowing of mugs of beer to advertise what one could "stand." If an anonymous drawing on a museum wall had been conscious and watchful it might have known this peculiar pleasure of being at last and all of a sudden identified--as from the hand of a great master--by the so high and so unnoticed fact of style. His "style" was what the girl had discovered with a little help; and now, beside herself enjoying it, she should publish it to the world without his having any of the trouble. She should do the thing FOR him, and he would not have waited in vain. Shortly before the time fixed in advance for her departure this young lady received from Mrs. Touchett a telegram running as follows: "Leave Florence 4th June for Bellaggio, and take you if you have not other views. But can't wait if you dawdle in Rome." The dawdling in Rome was very pleasant, but Isabel had different views, and she let her aunt know she would immediately join her. She told Gilbert Osmond that she had done so, and he replied that, spending many of his summers as well as his winters in Italy, he himself would loiter a little longer in the cool shadow of Saint Peter's. He would not return to Florence for ten days more, and in that time she would have started for Bellaggio. It might be months in this case before he should see her again. This exchange took place in the large decorated sitting-room occupied by our friends at the hotel; it was late in the evening, and Ralph Touchett was to take his cousin back to Florence on the morrow. Osmond had found the girl alone; Miss Stackpole had contracted a friendship with a delightful American family on the fourth floor and had mounted the interminable staircase to pay them a visit. Henrietta contracted friendships, in travelling, with great freedom, and had formed in railway-carriages several that were among her most valued ties. Ralph was making arrangements for the morrow's journey, and Isabel sat alone in a wilderness of yellow upholstery. The chairs and sofas were orange; the walls and windows were draped in purple and gilt. The mirrors, the pictures had great flamboyant frames; the ceiling was deeply vaulted and painted over with naked muses and cherubs. For Osmond the place was ugly to distress; the false colours, the sham splendour were like vulgar, bragging, lying talk. Isabel had taken in hand a volume of Ampere, presented, on their arrival in Rome, by Ralph; but though she held it in her lap with her finger vaguely kept in the place she was not impatient to pursue her study. A lamp covered with a drooping veil of pink tissue-paper burned on the table beside her and diffused a strange pale rosiness over the scene. "You say you'll come back; but who knows?" Gilbert Osmond said. "I think you're much more likely to start on your voyage round the world. You're under no obligation to come back; you can do exactly what you choose; you can roam through space." "Well, Italy's a part of space," Isabel answered. "I can take it on the way." "On the way round the world? No, don't do that. Don't put us in a parenthesis--give us a chapter to ourselves. I don't want to see you on your travels. I'd rather see you when they're over. I should like to see you when you're tired and satiated," Osmond added in a moment. "I shall prefer you in that state." Isabel, with her eyes bent, fingered the pages of M. Ampere. "You turn things into ridicule without seeming to do it, though not, I think, without intending it. You've no respect for my travels--you think them ridiculous." "Where do you find that?" She went on in the same tone, fretting the edge of her book with the paper-knife. "You see my ignorance, my blunders, the way I wander about as if the world belonged to me, simply because--because it has been put into my power to do so. You don't think a woman ought to do that. You think it bold and ungraceful." "I think it beautiful," said Osmond. "You know my opinions--I've treated you to enough of them. Don't you remember my telling you that one ought to make one's life a work of art? You looked rather shocked at first; but then I told you that it was exactly what you seemed to me to be trying to do with your own." She looked up from her book. "What you despise most in the world is bad, is stupid art." "Possibly. But yours seem to me very clear and very good." "If I were to go to Japan next winter you would laugh at me," she went on. Osmond gave a smile--a keen one, but not a laugh, for the tone of their conversation was not jocose. Isabel had in fact her solemnity; he had seen it before. "You have one!" "That's exactly what I say. You think such an idea absurd." "I would give my little finger to go to Japan; it's one of the countries I want most to see. Can't you believe that, with my taste for old lacquer?" "I haven't a taste for old lacquer to excuse me," said Isabel. "You've a better excuse--the means of going. You're quite wrong in your theory that I laugh at you. I don't know what has put it into your head." "It wouldn't be remarkable if you did think it ridiculous that I should have the means to travel when you've not; for you know everything and I know nothing." "The more reason why you should travel and learn," smiled Osmond. "Besides," he added as if it were a point to be made, "I don't know everything." Isabel was not struck with the oddity of his saying this gravely; she was thinking that the pleasantest incident of her life--so it pleased her to qualify these too few days in Rome, which she might musingly have likened to the figure of some small princess of one of the ages of dress overmuffled in a mantle of state and dragging a train that it took pages or historians to hold up--that this felicity was coming to an end. That most of the interest of the time had been owing to Mr. Osmond was a reflexion she was not just now at pains to make; she had already done the point abundant justice. But she said to herself that if there were a danger they should never meet again, perhaps after all it would be as well. Happy things don't repeat themselves, and her adventure wore already the changed, the seaward face of some romantic island from which, after feasting on purple grapes, she was putting off while the breeze rose. She might come back to Italy and find him different--this strange man who pleased her just as he was; and it would be better not to come than run the risk of that. But if she was not to come the greater the pity that the chapter was closed; she felt for a moment a pang that touched the source of tears. The sensation kept her silent, and Gilbert Osmond was silent too; he was looking at her. "Go everywhere," he said at last, in a low, kind voice; "do everything; get everything out of life. Be happy,--be triumphant." "What do you mean by being triumphant?" "Well, doing what you like." "To triumph, then, it seems to me, is to fail! Doing all the vain things one likes is often very tiresome." "Exactly," said Osmond with his quiet quickness. "As I intimated just now, you'll be tired some day." He paused a moment and then he went on: "I don't know whether I had better not wait till then for something I want to say to you." "Ah, I can't advise you without knowing what it is. But I'm horrid when I'm tired," Isabel added with due inconsequence. "I don't believe that. You're angry, sometimes--that I can believe, though I've never seen it. But I'm sure you're never 'cross.'" "Not even when I lose my temper?" "You don't lose it--you find it, and that must be beautiful." Osmond spoke with a noble earnestness. "They must be great moments to see." "If I could only find it now!" Isabel nervously cried. "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!" "Tired of hearing it from others?" He sat there raising his eyes to her. "No, you may heed it now or never, as you please. But after all I must say it now." She had turned away, but in the movement she had stopped herself and dropped her gaze upon him. The two remained a while in this situation, exchanging a long look--the large, conscious look of the critical hours of life. Then he got up and came near her, deeply respectful, as if he were afraid he had been too familiar. "I'm absolutely in love with you." He had repeated the announcement in a tone of almost impersonal discretion, like a man who expected very little from it but who spoke for his own needed relief. The tears came into her eyes: this time they obeyed the sharpness of the pang that suggested to her somehow the slipping of a fine bolt--backward, forward, she couldn't have said which. The words he had uttered made him, as he stood there, beautiful and generous, invested him as with the golden air of early autumn; but, morally speaking, she retreated before them--facing him still--as she had retreated in the other cases before a like encounter. "Oh don't say that, please," she answered with an intensity that expressed the dread of having, in this case too, to choose and decide. What made her dread great was precisely the force which, as it would seem, ought to have banished all dread--the sense of something within herself, deep down, that she supposed to be inspired and trustful passion. It was there like a large sum stored in a bank--which there was a terror in having to begin to spend. If she touched it, it would all come out. "I haven't the idea that it will matter much to you," said Osmond. "I've too little to offer you. What I have--it's enough for me; but it's not enough for you. I've neither fortune, nor fame, nor extrinsic advantages of any kind. So I offer nothing. I only tell you because I think it can't offend you, and some day or other it may give you pleasure. It gives me pleasure, I assure you," he went on, standing there before her, considerately inclined to her, turning his hat, which he had taken up, slowly round with a movement which had all the decent tremor of awkwardness and none of its oddity, and presenting to her his firm, refined, slightly ravaged face. "It gives me no pain, because it's perfectly simple. For me you'll always be the most important woman in the world." Isabel looked at herself in this character--looked intently, thinking she filled it with a certain grace. But what she said was not an expression of any such complacency. "You don't offend me; but you ought to remember that, without being offended, one may be incommoded, troubled." "Incommoded," she heard herself saying that, and it struck her as a ridiculous word. But it was what stupidly came to her. "I remember perfectly. Of course you're surprised and startled. But if it's nothing but that, it will pass away. And it will perhaps leave something that I may not be ashamed of." "I don't know what it may leave. You see at all events that I'm not overwhelmed," said Isabel with rather a pale smile. "I'm not too troubled to think. And I think that I'm glad I leave Rome to-morrow." "Of course I don't agree with you there." "I don't at all KNOW you," she added abruptly; and then she coloured as she heard herself saying what she had said almost a year before to Lord Warburton. "If you were not going away you'd know me better." "I shall do that some other time." "I hope so. I'm very easy to know." "No, no," she emphatically answered--"there you're not sincere. You're not easy to know; no one could be less so." "Well," he laughed, "I said that because I know myself. It may be a boast, but I do." "Very likely; but you're very wise." "So are you, Miss Archer!" Osmond exclaimed. "I don't feel so just now. Still, I'm wise enough to think you had better go. Good-night." "God bless you!" said Gilbert Osmond, taking the hand which she failed to surrender. After which he added: "If we meet again you'll find me as you leave me. If we don't I shall be so all the same." "Thank you very much. Good-bye." There was something quietly firm about Isabel's visitor; he might go of his own movement, but wouldn't be dismissed. "There's one thing more. I haven't asked anything of you--not even a thought in the future; you must do me that justice. But there's a little service I should like to ask. I shall not return home for several days; Rome's delightful, and it's a good place for a man in my state of mind. Oh, I know you're sorry to leave it; but you're right to do what your aunt wishes." "She doesn't even wish it!" Isabel broke out strangely. Osmond was apparently on the point of saying something that would match these words, but he changed his mind and rejoined simply: "Ah well, it's proper you should go with her, very proper. Do everything that's proper; I go in for that. Excuse my being so patronising. You say you don't know me, but when you do you'll discover what a worship I have for propriety." "You're not conventional?" Isabel gravely asked. "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." She stood there with lowered eyes. "What service did you speak of just now?" "Go and see my little daughter before you leave Florence. She's alone at the villa; I decided not to send her to my sister, who hasn't at all my ideas. Tell her she must love her poor father very much," said Gilbert Osmond gently. "It will be a great pleasure to me to go," Isabel answered. "I'll tell her what you say. Once more good-bye." On this he took a rapid, respectful leave. When he had gone she stood a moment looking about her and seated herself slowly and with an air of deliberation. She sat there till her companions came back, with folded hands, gazing at the ugly carpet. Her agitation--for it had not diminished--was very still, very deep. What had happened was something that for a week past her imagination had been going forward to meet; but here, when it came, she stopped--that sublime principle somehow broke down. The working of this young lady's spirit was strange, and I can only give it to you as I see it, not hoping to make it seem altogether natural. Her imagination, as I say, now hung back: there was a last vague space it couldn't cross--a dusky, uncertain tract which looked ambiguous and even slightly treacherous, like a moorland seen in the winter twilight. But she was to cross it yet.

In these chapters, we start to see the significance of one person's view of oneself for determining one's actions and preferences in the world. Isabel likes how she herself is seen by Gilbert Osmond; Gilbert Osmond likes how Lord Warburton sees Isabel, and decides that Isabel is worthy of being admired because of it; and Ralph believes that if he and Lord Warburton do not suggest Isabel that Gilbert Osmond is not a good suitor, that she will not act the contrary part and end up marrying him. Isabel seems to be an original because she likes to act contrary to how people expect her to, so Ralph believes that if they do not want her to marry Gilbert Osmond, she will do the opposite. Yet, Isabel also likes how she is seen from the eyes of Gilbert Osmond -- but she is here trying to act contrary to this vision, as if she wanted to continue asserting her liberty. However, the problem is that Gilbert Osmond does not give her something very concrete to react against: it is instead a vague image, as he does not even propose marriage to her. This allows for her imagination to grow enormously. If he had proposed marriage, it seems that she would have had an immediate reaction to the contrary. It is interesting to consider the growth of Isabel's imagination in the context of the sudden appearances of Lord Warburton and Gilbert Osmond, which are juxtaposed against each other. Lord Warburton interrupts her inner world, as if he is a daydream come alive. He admits that she has appeared to him as if he had wished her into existence, but the set up of the scene implies to us that Isabel herself has wished him into existence. Yet, it is almost as if this exact correspondence to her imagination is something that Isabel cannot accept: she is too ambitious to be satisfied with the concrete reality of any of her ideas, and thus she rejects him. Notably, the background references the buried past: she is in a site where they have archaeological digs. It is as if something real and concrete has been dug up from her past life and appeared here in Rome -- Lord Warburton himself. In contrast, Gilbert Osmond appears in Saint Peter's basilica, described as a place where most people are disappointed. Isabel though is not disappointed, because she is capable of imagining something that is not there, while also ignoring that which is actually present before her eyes. We are led to believe that this is how she sees Osmond: she can imagine a lot of vague things about him, because she is blind to what is right before her eyes, and because she is not able to concretely grasp what he is about. Osmond's vague declaration of love serves to further this pattern. Because he is not concretely offering his hand in marriage, she is instead allowed to imagine further possibilities as to where their relationship might go, to have her own original idea about them, rather than slotting them into a conventional social form. Isabel's imagination works best when it is vague or when it is working against something concrete. But when something corresponds to her imagination, it is as if she is scared of something -- perhaps disappointment of how pathetic reality actually is. Pansy's characterization in Chapter 30 gives plenty of room for Isabel's imagination, but it has little substance in itself. She is described as a blank page, so that Isabel can project what she wishes to upon her. It seems that this might be the seed for Isabel's later acceptance of Osmond's proposal of marriage. Isabel would like to do something for the child - she would like to give Pansy the choice to marry or not. This could be one interpretation of Isabel's psychological motivations for marrying Gilbert Osmond. In Chapter 30, we get an indication of what the social mores were at the time. It was inappropriate for young women to visit unmarried men alone. This is evidence of the Victorian prudery of the time. Isabel makes a good point in noting that Merle has visited Osmond alone and it has not mattered. There is a suggestion though that Merle has made a point of allowing her visits not "to signify." This is an interesting theme throughout the work: what do social conventions signify, and how do they signify? For example, what does it mean when someone acts inappropriately - does it mean that this person is vulgar? Merle hints that she is a master of manipulating the signs of social conventions: she can control how things signify, rather than simply accepting that they signify something obvious. See Sharon Cameron's work for more on how characters manipulate social signs and meaning.

analysis

She returned on the morrow to Florence, under her cousin's escort, and Ralph Touchett, though usually restive under railway discipline, thought very well of the successive hours passed in the train that hurried his companion away from the city now distinguished by Gilbert Osmond's preference--hours that were to form the first stage in a larger scheme of travel. Miss Stackpole had remained behind; she was planning a little trip to Naples, to be carried out with Mr. Bantling's aid. Isabel was to have three days in Florence before the 4th of June, the date of Mrs. Touchett's departure, and she determined to devote the last of these to her promise to call on Pansy Osmond. Her plan, however, seemed for a moment likely to modify itself in deference to an idea of Madame Merle's. This lady was still at Casa Touchett; but she too was on the point of leaving Florence, her next station being an ancient castle in the mountains of Tuscany, the residence of a noble family of that country, whose acquaintance (she had known them, as she said, "forever") seemed to Isabel, in the light of certain photographs of their immense crenellated dwelling which her friend was able to show her, a precious privilege. She mentioned to this fortunate woman that Mr. Osmond had asked her to take a look at his daughter, but didn't mention that he had also made her a declaration of love. "Ah, comme cela se trouve!" Madame Merle exclaimed. "I myself have been thinking it would be a kindness to pay the child a little visit before I go off." "We can go together then," Isabel reasonably said: "reasonably" because the proposal was not uttered in the spirit of enthusiasm. She had prefigured her small pilgrimage as made in solitude; she should like it better so. She was nevertheless prepared to sacrifice this mystic sentiment to her great consideration for her friend. That personage finely meditated. "After all, why should we both go; having, each of us, so much to do during these last hours?" "Very good; I can easily go alone." "I don't know about your going alone--to the house of a handsome bachelor. He has been married--but so long ago!" Isabel stared. "When Mr. Osmond's away what does it matter?" "They don't know he's away, you see." "They? Whom do you mean?" "Every one. But perhaps it doesn't signify." "If you were going why shouldn't I?" Isabel asked. "Because I'm an old frump and you're a beautiful young woman." "Granting all that, you've not promised." "How much you think of your promises!" said the elder woman in mild mockery. "I think a great deal of my promises. Does that surprise you?" "You're right," Madame Merle audibly reflected. "I really think you wish to be kind to the child." "I wish very much to be kind to her." "Go and see her then; no one will be the wiser. And tell her I'd have come if you hadn't. Or rather," Madame Merle added, "DON'T tell her. She won't care." As Isabel drove, in the publicity of an open vehicle, along the winding way which led to Mr. Osmond's hill-top, she wondered what her friend had meant by no one's being the wiser. Once in a while, at large intervals, this lady, whose voyaging discretion, as a general thing, was rather of the open sea than of the risky channel, dropped a remark of ambiguous quality, struck a note that sounded false. What cared Isabel Archer for the vulgar judgements of obscure people? and did Madame Merle suppose that she was capable of doing a thing at all if it had to be sneakingly done? Of course not: she must have meant something else--something which in the press of the hours that preceded her departure she had not had time to explain. Isabel would return to this some day; there were sorts of things as to which she liked to be clear. She heard Pansy strumming at the piano in another place as she herself was ushered into Mr. Osmond's drawing-room; the little girl was "practising," and Isabel was pleased to think she performed this duty with rigour. She immediately came in, smoothing down her frock, and did the honours of her father's house with a wide-eyed earnestness of courtesy. Isabel sat there half an hour, and Pansy rose to the occasion as the small, winged fairy in the pantomime soars by the aid of the dissimulated wire--not chattering, but conversing, and showing the same respectful interest in Isabel's affairs that Isabel was so good as to take in hers. Isabel wondered at her; she had never had so directly presented to her nose the white flower of cultivated sweetness. How well the child had been taught, said our admiring young woman; how prettily she had been directed and fashioned; and yet how simple, how natural, how innocent she had been kept! Isabel was fond, ever, of the question of character and quality, of sounding, as who should say, the deep personal mystery, and it had pleased her, up to this time, to be in doubt as to whether this tender slip were not really all-knowing. Was the extremity of her candour but the perfection of self-consciousness? Was it put on to please her father's visitor, or was it the direct expression of an unspotted nature? The hour that Isabel spent in Mr. Osmond's beautiful empty, dusky rooms--the windows had been half-darkened, to keep out the heat, and here and there, through an easy crevice, the splendid summer day peeped in, lighting a gleam of faded colour or tarnished gilt in the rich gloom--her interview with the daughter of the house, I say, effectually settled this question. Pansy was really a blank page, a pure white surface, successfully kept so; she had neither art, nor guile, nor temper, nor talent--only two or three small exquisite instincts: for knowing a friend, for avoiding a mistake, for taking care of an old toy or a new frock. Yet to be so tender was to be touching withal, and she could be felt as an easy victim of fate. She would have no will, no power to resist, no sense of her own importance; she would easily be mystified, easily crushed: her force would be all in knowing when and where to cling. She moved about the place with her visitor, who had asked leave to walk through the other rooms again, where Pansy gave her judgement on several works of art. She spoke of her prospects, her occupations, her father's intentions; she was not egotistical, but felt the propriety of supplying the information so distinguished a guest would naturally expect. "Please tell me," she said, "did papa, in Rome, go to see Madame Catherine? He told me he would if he had time. Perhaps he had not time. Papa likes a great deal of time. He wished to speak about my education; it isn't finished yet, you know. I don't know what they can do with me more; but it appears it's far from finished. Papa told me one day he thought he would finish it himself; for the last year or two, at the convent, the masters that teach the tall girls are so very dear. Papa's not rich, and I should be very sorry if he were to pay much money for me, because I don't think I'm worth it. I don't learn quickly enough, and I have no memory. For what I'm told, yes--especially when it's pleasant; but not for what I learn in a book. There was a young girl who was my best friend, and they took her away from the convent, when she was fourteen, to make--how do you say it in English?--to make a dot. You don't say it in English? I hope it isn't wrong; I only mean they wished to keep the money to marry her. I don't know whether it is for that that papa wishes to keep the money--to marry me. It costs so much to marry!" Pansy went on with a sigh; "I think papa might make that economy. At any rate I'm too young to think about it yet, and I don't care for any gentleman; I mean for any but him. If he were not my papa I should like to marry him; 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. That's not a great compliment, for there are not many people. It was very kind of you to come to-day--so far from your house; for I'm really as yet only a child. Oh, yes, I've only the occupations of a child. When did YOU give them up, the occupations of a child? I should like to know how old you are, but I don't know whether it's right to ask. At the convent they told us that we must never ask the age. I don't like to do anything that's not expected; it looks as if one had not been properly taught. I myself--I should never like to be taken by surprise. Papa left directions for everything. I go to bed very early. When the sun goes off that side I go into the garden. Papa left strict orders that I was not to get scorched. I always enjoy the view; the mountains are so graceful. In Rome, from the convent, we saw nothing but roofs and bell-towers. I practise three hours. I don't play very well. You play yourself? I wish very much you'd play something for me; papa has the idea that I should hear good music. Madame Merle has played for me several times; that's what I like best about Madame Merle; she has great facility. I shall never have facility. And I've no voice--just a small sound like the squeak of a slate-pencil making flourishes." Isabel gratified this respectful wish, drew off her gloves and sat down to the piano, while Pansy, standing beside her, watched her white hands move quickly over the keys. When she stopped she kissed the child good-bye, held her close, looked at her long. "Be very good," she said; "give pleasure to your father." "I think that's what I live for," Pansy answered. "He has not much pleasure; he's rather a sad man." Isabel listened to this assertion with an interest which she felt it almost a torment to be obliged to conceal. It was her pride that obliged her, and a certain sense of decency; there were still other things in her head which she felt a strong impulse, instantly checked, to say to Pansy about her father; there were things it would have given her pleasure to hear the child, to make the child, say. But she no sooner became conscious of these things than her imagination was hushed with horror at the idea of taking advantage of the little girl--it was of this she would have accused herself--and of exhaling into that air where he might still have a subtle sense for it any breath of her charmed state. She had come--she had come; but she had stayed only an hour. She rose quickly from the music-stool; even then, however, she lingered a moment, still holding her small companion, drawing the child's sweet slimness closer and looking down at her almost in envy. She was obliged to confess it to herself--she would have taken a passionate pleasure in talking of Gilbert Osmond to this innocent, diminutive creature who was so near him. But she said no other word; she only kissed Pansy once again. They went together through the vestibule, to the door that opened on the court; and there her young hostess stopped, looking rather wistfully beyond. "I may go no further. I've promised papa not to pass this door." "You're right to obey him; he'll never ask you anything unreasonable." "I shall always obey him. But when will you come again?" "Not for a long time, I'm afraid." "As soon as you can, I hope. I'm only a little girl," said Pansy, "but I shall always expect you." And the small figure stood in the high, dark doorway, watching Isabel cross the clear, grey court and disappear into the brightness beyond the big portone, which gave a wider dazzle as it opened.

Isabel announces her intention to visit Pansy to Madame Merle, but Merle cautions her that it might not look appropriate, since Gilbert Osmond is a bachelor. Isabel wonders what it matters, as Osmond is not there currently. Merle responds, "They don't know he's away, you see. Isabel asks whom she means. She responds, "Everyone. But perhaps it doesn't signify". Isabel goes to visit Pansy anyway. She is extremely impressed by the young creature, noting how innocent she is. She wonders if perhaps the natural mannerism of the child is really the "perfection of self-consciousness". The narrator thinks that Pansy is really a blank page, which really has no will and could be easily mystified. Pansy mentions to Isabel how a friend of hers has been withdrawn from the convent in order to save money for her dowry. She wonders if that is the reason why she is being withdrawn from the convent. She notes that it costs much money to marry, but she wishes really only to stay with her father for her whole life. Pansy says she lives for her father, to make him happy. Isabel leaves, feeling like she would have liked to tell Pansy something about her father, but that she will have ruined Pansy's innocence if she does

summary

She returned on the morrow to Florence, under her cousin's escort, and Ralph Touchett, though usually restive under railway discipline, thought very well of the successive hours passed in the train that hurried his companion away from the city now distinguished by Gilbert Osmond's preference--hours that were to form the first stage in a larger scheme of travel. Miss Stackpole had remained behind; she was planning a little trip to Naples, to be carried out with Mr. Bantling's aid. Isabel was to have three days in Florence before the 4th of June, the date of Mrs. Touchett's departure, and she determined to devote the last of these to her promise to call on Pansy Osmond. Her plan, however, seemed for a moment likely to modify itself in deference to an idea of Madame Merle's. This lady was still at Casa Touchett; but she too was on the point of leaving Florence, her next station being an ancient castle in the mountains of Tuscany, the residence of a noble family of that country, whose acquaintance (she had known them, as she said, "forever") seemed to Isabel, in the light of certain photographs of their immense crenellated dwelling which her friend was able to show her, a precious privilege. She mentioned to this fortunate woman that Mr. Osmond had asked her to take a look at his daughter, but didn't mention that he had also made her a declaration of love. "Ah, comme cela se trouve!" Madame Merle exclaimed. "I myself have been thinking it would be a kindness to pay the child a little visit before I go off." "We can go together then," Isabel reasonably said: "reasonably" because the proposal was not uttered in the spirit of enthusiasm. She had prefigured her small pilgrimage as made in solitude; she should like it better so. She was nevertheless prepared to sacrifice this mystic sentiment to her great consideration for her friend. That personage finely meditated. "After all, why should we both go; having, each of us, so much to do during these last hours?" "Very good; I can easily go alone." "I don't know about your going alone--to the house of a handsome bachelor. He has been married--but so long ago!" Isabel stared. "When Mr. Osmond's away what does it matter?" "They don't know he's away, you see." "They? Whom do you mean?" "Every one. But perhaps it doesn't signify." "If you were going why shouldn't I?" Isabel asked. "Because I'm an old frump and you're a beautiful young woman." "Granting all that, you've not promised." "How much you think of your promises!" said the elder woman in mild mockery. "I think a great deal of my promises. Does that surprise you?" "You're right," Madame Merle audibly reflected. "I really think you wish to be kind to the child." "I wish very much to be kind to her." "Go and see her then; no one will be the wiser. And tell her I'd have come if you hadn't. Or rather," Madame Merle added, "DON'T tell her. She won't care." As Isabel drove, in the publicity of an open vehicle, along the winding way which led to Mr. Osmond's hill-top, she wondered what her friend had meant by no one's being the wiser. Once in a while, at large intervals, this lady, whose voyaging discretion, as a general thing, was rather of the open sea than of the risky channel, dropped a remark of ambiguous quality, struck a note that sounded false. What cared Isabel Archer for the vulgar judgements of obscure people? and did Madame Merle suppose that she was capable of doing a thing at all if it had to be sneakingly done? Of course not: she must have meant something else--something which in the press of the hours that preceded her departure she had not had time to explain. Isabel would return to this some day; there were sorts of things as to which she liked to be clear. She heard Pansy strumming at the piano in another place as she herself was ushered into Mr. Osmond's drawing-room; the little girl was "practising," and Isabel was pleased to think she performed this duty with rigour. She immediately came in, smoothing down her frock, and did the honours of her father's house with a wide-eyed earnestness of courtesy. Isabel sat there half an hour, and Pansy rose to the occasion as the small, winged fairy in the pantomime soars by the aid of the dissimulated wire--not chattering, but conversing, and showing the same respectful interest in Isabel's affairs that Isabel was so good as to take in hers. Isabel wondered at her; she had never had so directly presented to her nose the white flower of cultivated sweetness. How well the child had been taught, said our admiring young woman; how prettily she had been directed and fashioned; and yet how simple, how natural, how innocent she had been kept! Isabel was fond, ever, of the question of character and quality, of sounding, as who should say, the deep personal mystery, and it had pleased her, up to this time, to be in doubt as to whether this tender slip were not really all-knowing. Was the extremity of her candour but the perfection of self-consciousness? Was it put on to please her father's visitor, or was it the direct expression of an unspotted nature? The hour that Isabel spent in Mr. Osmond's beautiful empty, dusky rooms--the windows had been half-darkened, to keep out the heat, and here and there, through an easy crevice, the splendid summer day peeped in, lighting a gleam of faded colour or tarnished gilt in the rich gloom--her interview with the daughter of the house, I say, effectually settled this question. Pansy was really a blank page, a pure white surface, successfully kept so; she had neither art, nor guile, nor temper, nor talent--only two or three small exquisite instincts: for knowing a friend, for avoiding a mistake, for taking care of an old toy or a new frock. Yet to be so tender was to be touching withal, and she could be felt as an easy victim of fate. She would have no will, no power to resist, no sense of her own importance; she would easily be mystified, easily crushed: her force would be all in knowing when and where to cling. She moved about the place with her visitor, who had asked leave to walk through the other rooms again, where Pansy gave her judgement on several works of art. She spoke of her prospects, her occupations, her father's intentions; she was not egotistical, but felt the propriety of supplying the information so distinguished a guest would naturally expect. "Please tell me," she said, "did papa, in Rome, go to see Madame Catherine? He told me he would if he had time. Perhaps he had not time. Papa likes a great deal of time. He wished to speak about my education; it isn't finished yet, you know. I don't know what they can do with me more; but it appears it's far from finished. Papa told me one day he thought he would finish it himself; for the last year or two, at the convent, the masters that teach the tall girls are so very dear. Papa's not rich, and I should be very sorry if he were to pay much money for me, because I don't think I'm worth it. I don't learn quickly enough, and I have no memory. For what I'm told, yes--especially when it's pleasant; but not for what I learn in a book. There was a young girl who was my best friend, and they took her away from the convent, when she was fourteen, to make--how do you say it in English?--to make a dot. You don't say it in English? I hope it isn't wrong; I only mean they wished to keep the money to marry her. I don't know whether it is for that that papa wishes to keep the money--to marry me. It costs so much to marry!" Pansy went on with a sigh; "I think papa might make that economy. At any rate I'm too young to think about it yet, and I don't care for any gentleman; I mean for any but him. If he were not my papa I should like to marry him; 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. That's not a great compliment, for there are not many people. It was very kind of you to come to-day--so far from your house; for I'm really as yet only a child. Oh, yes, I've only the occupations of a child. When did YOU give them up, the occupations of a child? I should like to know how old you are, but I don't know whether it's right to ask. At the convent they told us that we must never ask the age. I don't like to do anything that's not expected; it looks as if one had not been properly taught. I myself--I should never like to be taken by surprise. Papa left directions for everything. I go to bed very early. When the sun goes off that side I go into the garden. Papa left strict orders that I was not to get scorched. I always enjoy the view; the mountains are so graceful. In Rome, from the convent, we saw nothing but roofs and bell-towers. I practise three hours. I don't play very well. You play yourself? I wish very much you'd play something for me; papa has the idea that I should hear good music. Madame Merle has played for me several times; that's what I like best about Madame Merle; she has great facility. I shall never have facility. And I've no voice--just a small sound like the squeak of a slate-pencil making flourishes." Isabel gratified this respectful wish, drew off her gloves and sat down to the piano, while Pansy, standing beside her, watched her white hands move quickly over the keys. When she stopped she kissed the child good-bye, held her close, looked at her long. "Be very good," she said; "give pleasure to your father." "I think that's what I live for," Pansy answered. "He has not much pleasure; he's rather a sad man." Isabel listened to this assertion with an interest which she felt it almost a torment to be obliged to conceal. It was her pride that obliged her, and a certain sense of decency; there were still other things in her head which she felt a strong impulse, instantly checked, to say to Pansy about her father; there were things it would have given her pleasure to hear the child, to make the child, say. But she no sooner became conscious of these things than her imagination was hushed with horror at the idea of taking advantage of the little girl--it was of this she would have accused herself--and of exhaling into that air where he might still have a subtle sense for it any breath of her charmed state. She had come--she had come; but she had stayed only an hour. She rose quickly from the music-stool; even then, however, she lingered a moment, still holding her small companion, drawing the child's sweet slimness closer and looking down at her almost in envy. She was obliged to confess it to herself--she would have taken a passionate pleasure in talking of Gilbert Osmond to this innocent, diminutive creature who was so near him. But she said no other word; she only kissed Pansy once again. They went together through the vestibule, to the door that opened on the court; and there her young hostess stopped, looking rather wistfully beyond. "I may go no further. I've promised papa not to pass this door." "You're right to obey him; he'll never ask you anything unreasonable." "I shall always obey him. But when will you come again?" "Not for a long time, I'm afraid." "As soon as you can, I hope. I'm only a little girl," said Pansy, "but I shall always expect you." And the small figure stood in the high, dark doorway, watching Isabel cross the clear, grey court and disappear into the brightness beyond the big portone, which gave a wider dazzle as it opened.

In these chapters, we start to see the significance of one person's view of oneself for determining one's actions and preferences in the world. Isabel likes how she herself is seen by Gilbert Osmond; Gilbert Osmond likes how Lord Warburton sees Isabel, and decides that Isabel is worthy of being admired because of it; and Ralph believes that if he and Lord Warburton do not suggest Isabel that Gilbert Osmond is not a good suitor, that she will not act the contrary part and end up marrying him. Isabel seems to be an original because she likes to act contrary to how people expect her to, so Ralph believes that if they do not want her to marry Gilbert Osmond, she will do the opposite. Yet, Isabel also likes how she is seen from the eyes of Gilbert Osmond -- but she is here trying to act contrary to this vision, as if she wanted to continue asserting her liberty. However, the problem is that Gilbert Osmond does not give her something very concrete to react against: it is instead a vague image, as he does not even propose marriage to her. This allows for her imagination to grow enormously. If he had proposed marriage, it seems that she would have had an immediate reaction to the contrary. It is interesting to consider the growth of Isabel's imagination in the context of the sudden appearances of Lord Warburton and Gilbert Osmond, which are juxtaposed against each other. Lord Warburton interrupts her inner world, as if he is a daydream come alive. He admits that she has appeared to him as if he had wished her into existence, but the set up of the scene implies to us that Isabel herself has wished him into existence. Yet, it is almost as if this exact correspondence to her imagination is something that Isabel cannot accept: she is too ambitious to be satisfied with the concrete reality of any of her ideas, and thus she rejects him. Notably, the background references the buried past: she is in a site where they have archaeological digs. It is as if something real and concrete has been dug up from her past life and appeared here in Rome -- Lord Warburton himself. In contrast, Gilbert Osmond appears in Saint Peter's basilica, described as a place where most people are disappointed. Isabel though is not disappointed, because she is capable of imagining something that is not there, while also ignoring that which is actually present before her eyes. We are led to believe that this is how she sees Osmond: she can imagine a lot of vague things about him, because she is blind to what is right before her eyes, and because she is not able to concretely grasp what he is about. Osmond's vague declaration of love serves to further this pattern. Because he is not concretely offering his hand in marriage, she is instead allowed to imagine further possibilities as to where their relationship might go, to have her own original idea about them, rather than slotting them into a conventional social form. Isabel's imagination works best when it is vague or when it is working against something concrete. But when something corresponds to her imagination, it is as if she is scared of something -- perhaps disappointment of how pathetic reality actually is. Pansy's characterization in Chapter 30 gives plenty of room for Isabel's imagination, but it has little substance in itself. She is described as a blank page, so that Isabel can project what she wishes to upon her. It seems that this might be the seed for Isabel's later acceptance of Osmond's proposal of marriage. Isabel would like to do something for the child - she would like to give Pansy the choice to marry or not. This could be one interpretation of Isabel's psychological motivations for marrying Gilbert Osmond. In Chapter 30, we get an indication of what the social mores were at the time. It was inappropriate for young women to visit unmarried men alone. This is evidence of the Victorian prudery of the time. Isabel makes a good point in noting that Merle has visited Osmond alone and it has not mattered. There is a suggestion though that Merle has made a point of allowing her visits not "to signify." This is an interesting theme throughout the work: what do social conventions signify, and how do they signify? For example, what does it mean when someone acts inappropriately - does it mean that this person is vulgar? Merle hints that she is a master of manipulating the signs of social conventions: she can control how things signify, rather than simply accepting that they signify something obvious. See Sharon Cameron's work for more on how characters manipulate social signs and meaning.

analysis

Isabel came back to Florence, but only after several months; an interval sufficiently replete with incident. It is not, however, during this interval that we are closely concerned with her; our attention is engaged again on a certain day in the late spring-time, shortly after her return to Palazzo Crescentini and a year from the date of the incidents just narrated. She was alone on this occasion, in one of the smaller of the numerous rooms devoted by Mrs. Touchett to social uses, and there was that in her expression and attitude which would have suggested that she was expecting a visitor. The tall window was open, and though its green shutters were partly drawn the bright air of the garden had come in through a broad interstice and filled the room with warmth and perfume. Our young woman stood near it for some time, her hands clasped behind her; she gazed abroad with the vagueness of unrest. Too troubled for attention she moved in a vain circle. Yet it could not be in her thought to catch a glimpse of her visitor before he should pass into the house, since the entrance to the palace was not through the garden, in which stillness and privacy always reigned. She wished rather to forestall his arrival by a process of conjecture, and to judge by the expression of her face this attempt gave her plenty to do. Grave she found herself, and positively more weighted, as by the experience of the lapse of the year she had spent in seeing the world. She had ranged, she would have said, through space and surveyed much of mankind, and was therefore now, in her own eyes, a very different person from the frivolous young woman from Albany who had begun to take the measure of Europe on the lawn at Gardencourt a couple of years before. She flattered herself she had harvested wisdom and learned a great deal more of life than this light-minded creature had even suspected. If her thoughts just now had inclined themselves to retrospect, instead of fluttering their wings nervously about the present, they would have evoked a multitude of interesting pictures. These pictures would have been both landscapes and figure-pieces; the latter, however, would have been the more numerous. With several of the images that might have been projected on such a field we are already acquainted. There would be for instance the conciliatory Lily, our heroine's sister and Edmund Ludlow's wife, who had come out from New York to spend five months with her relative. She had left her husband behind her, but had brought her children, to whom Isabel now played with equal munificence and tenderness the part of maiden-aunt. Mr. Ludlow, toward the last, had been able to snatch a few weeks from his forensic triumphs and, crossing the ocean with extreme rapidity, had spent a month with the two ladies in Paris before taking his wife home. The little Ludlows had not yet, even from the American point of view, reached the proper tourist-age; so that while her sister was with her Isabel had confined her movements to a narrow circle. Lily and the babies had joined her in Switzerland in the month of July, and they had spent a summer of fine weather in an Alpine valley where the flowers were thick in the meadows and the shade of great chestnuts made a resting-place for such upward wanderings as might be undertaken by ladies and children on warm afternoons. They had afterwards reached the French capital, which was worshipped, and with costly ceremonies, by Lily, but thought of as noisily vacant by Isabel, who in these days made use of her memory of Rome as she might have done, in a hot and crowded room, of a phial of something pungent hidden in her handkerchief. Mrs. Ludlow sacrificed, as I say, to Paris, yet had doubts and wonderments not allayed at that altar; and after her husband had joined her found further chagrin in his failure to throw himself into these speculations. They all had Isabel for subject; but Edmund Ludlow, as he had always done before, declined to be surprised, or distressed, or mystified, or elated, at anything his sister-in-law might have done or have failed to do. Mrs. Ludlow's mental motions were sufficiently various. At one moment she thought it would be so natural for that young woman to come home and take a house in New York--the Rossiters', for instance, which had an elegant conservatory and was just round the corner from her own; at another she couldn't conceal her surprise at the girl's not marrying some member of one of the great aristocracies. On the whole, as I have said, she had fallen from high communion with the probabilities. She had taken more satisfaction in Isabel's accession of fortune than if the money had been left to herself; it had seemed to her to offer just the proper setting for her sister's slightly meagre, but scarce the less eminent figure. Isabel had developed less, however, than Lily had thought likely--development, to Lily's understanding, being somehow mysteriously connected with morning-calls and evening-parties. Intellectually, doubtless, she had made immense strides; but she appeared to have achieved few of those social conquests of which Mrs. Ludlow had expected to admire the trophies. Lily's conception of such achievements was extremely vague; but this was exactly what she had expected of Isabel--to give it form and body. Isabel could have done as well as she had done in New York; and Mrs. Ludlow appealed to her husband to know whether there was any privilege she enjoyed in Europe which the society of that city might not offer her. We know ourselves that Isabel had made conquests--whether inferior or not to those she might have effected in her native land it would be a delicate matter to decide; and it is not altogether with a feeling of complacency that I again mention that she had not rendered these honourable victories public. She had not told her sister the history of Lord Warburton, nor had she given her a hint of Mr. Osmond's state of mind; and she had had no better reason for her silence than that she didn't wish to speak. It was more romantic to say nothing, and, drinking deep, in secret, of romance, she was as little disposed to ask poor Lily's advice as she would have been to close that rare volume forever. But Lily knew nothing of these discriminations, and could only pronounce her sister's career a strange anti-climax--an impression confirmed by the fact that Isabel's silence about Mr. Osmond, for instance, was in direct proportion to the frequency with which he occupied her thoughts. As this happened very often it sometimes appeared to Mrs. Ludlow that she had lost her courage. So uncanny a result of so exhilarating an incident as inheriting a fortune was of course perplexing to the cheerful Lily; it added to her general sense that Isabel was not at all like other people. Our young lady's courage, however, might have been taken as reaching its height after her relations had gone home. She could imagine braver things than spending the winter in Paris--Paris had sides by which it so resembled New York, Paris was like smart, neat prose--and her close correspondence with Madame Merle did much to stimulate such flights. She had never had a keener sense of freedom, of the absolute boldness and wantonness of liberty, than when she turned away from the platform at the Euston Station on one of the last days of November, after the departure of the train that was to convey poor Lily, her husband and her children to their ship at Liverpool. It had been good for her to regale; she was very conscious of that; she was very observant, as we know, of what was good for her, and her effort was constantly to find something that was good enough. To profit by the present advantage till the latest moment she had made the journey from Paris with the unenvied travellers. She would have accompanied them to Liverpool as well, only Edmund Ludlow had asked her, as a favour, not to do so; it made Lily so fidgety and she asked such impossible questions. Isabel watched the train move away; she kissed her hand to the elder of her small nephews, a demonstrative child who leaned dangerously far out of the window of the carriage and made separation an occasion of violent hilarity, and then she walked back into the foggy London street. The world lay before her--she could do whatever she chose. There was a deep thrill in it all, but for the present her choice was tolerably discreet; she chose simply to walk back from Euston Square to her hotel. The early dusk of a November afternoon had already closed in; the street-lamps, in the thick, brown air, looked weak and red; our heroine was unattended and Euston Square was a long way from Piccadilly. But Isabel performed the journey with a positive enjoyment of its dangers and lost her way almost on purpose, in order to get more sensations, so that she was disappointed when an obliging policeman easily set her right again. She was so fond of the spectacle of human life that she enjoyed even the aspect of gathering dusk in the London streets--the moving crowds, the hurrying cabs, the lighted shops, the flaring stalls, the dark, shining dampness of everything. That evening, at her hotel, she wrote to Madame Merle that she should start in a day or two for Rome. She made her way down to Rome without touching at Florence--having gone first to Venice and then proceeded southward by Ancona. She accomplished this journey without other assistance than that of her servant, for her natural protectors were not now on the ground. Ralph Touchett was spending the winter at Corfu, and Miss Stackpole, in the September previous, had been recalled to America by a telegram from the Interviewer. This journal offered its brilliant correspondent a fresher field for her genius than the mouldering cities of Europe, and Henrietta was cheered on her way by a promise from Mr. Bantling that he would soon come over to see her. Isabel wrote to Mrs. Touchett to apologise for not presenting herself just yet in Florence, and her aunt replied characteristically enough. Apologies, Mrs. Touchett intimated, were of no more use to her than bubbles, and she herself never dealt in such articles. One either did the thing or one didn't, and what one "would" have done belonged to the sphere of the irrelevant, like the idea of a future life or of the origin of things. Her letter was frank, but (a rare case with Mrs. Touchett) not so frank as it pretended. She easily forgave her niece for not stopping at Florence, because she took it for a sign that Gilbert Osmond was less in question there than formerly. She watched of course to see if he would now find a pretext for going to Rome, and derived some comfort from learning that he had not been guilty of an absence. Isabel, on her side, had not been a fortnight in Rome before she proposed to Madame Merle that they should make a little pilgrimage to the East. Madame Merle remarked that her friend was restless, but she added that she herself had always been consumed with the desire to visit Athens and Constantinople. The two ladies accordingly embarked on this expedition, and spent three months in Greece, in Turkey, in Egypt. Isabel found much to interest her in these countries, though Madame Merle continued to remark that even among the most classic sites, the scenes most calculated to suggest repose and reflexion, a certain incoherence prevailed in her. Isabel travelled rapidly and recklessly; she was like a thirsty person draining cup after cup. Madame Merle meanwhile, as lady-in-waiting to a princess circulating incognita, panted a little in her rear. It was on Isabel's invitation she had come, and she imparted all due dignity to the girl's uncountenanced state. She played her part with the tact that might have been expected of her, effacing herself and accepting the position of a companion whose expenses were profusely paid. The situation, however, had no hardships, and people who met this reserved though striking pair on their travels would not have been able to tell you which was patroness and which client. To say that Madame Merle improved on acquaintance states meagrely the impression she made on her friend, who had found her from the first so ample and so easy. At the end of an intimacy of three months Isabel felt she knew her better; her character had revealed itself, and the admirable woman had also at last redeemed her promise of relating her history from her own point of view--a consummation the more desirable as Isabel had already heard it related from the point of view of others. This history was so sad a one (in so far as it concerned the late M. Merle, a positive adventurer, she might say, though originally so plausible, who had taken advantage, years before, of her youth and of an inexperience in which doubtless those who knew her only now would find it difficult to believe); it abounded so in startling and lamentable incidents that her companion wondered a person so eprouvee could have kept so much of her freshness, her interest in life. Into this freshness of Madame Merle's she obtained a considerable insight; she seemed to see it as professional, as slightly mechanical, carried about in its case like the fiddle of the virtuoso, or blanketed and bridled like the "favourite" of the jockey. She liked her as much as ever, but there was a corner of the curtain that never was lifted; it was as if she had remained after all something of a public performer, condemned to emerge only in character and in costume. She had once said that she came from a distance, that she belonged to the "old, old" world, and Isabel never lost the impression that she was the product of a different moral or social clime from her own, that she had grown up under other stars. She believed then that at bottom she had a different morality. Of course the morality of civilised persons has always much in common; but our young woman had a sense in her of values gone wrong or, as they said at the shops, marked down. She considered, with the presumption of youth, that a morality differing from her own must be inferior to it; and this conviction was an aid to detecting an occasional flash of cruelty, an occasional lapse from candour, in the conversation of a person who had raised delicate kindness to an art and whose pride was too high for the narrow ways of deception. Her conception of human motives might, in certain lights, have been acquired at the court of some kingdom in decadence, and there were several in her list of which our heroine had not even heard. She had not heard of everything, that was very plain; and there were evidently things in the world of which it was not advantageous to hear. She had once or twice had a positive scare; since it so affected her to have to exclaim, of her friend, "Heaven forgive her, she doesn't understand me!" Absurd as it may seem this discovery operated as a shock, left her with a vague dismay in which there was even an element of foreboding. The dismay of course subsided, in the light of some sudden proof of Madame Merle's remarkable intelligence; but it stood for a high-water-mark in the ebb and flow of confidence. Madame Merle had once declared her belief that when a friendship ceases to grow it immediately begins to decline--there being no point of equilibrium between liking more and liking less. A stationary affection, in other words, was impossible--it must move one way or the other. However that might be, the girl had in these days a thousand uses for her sense of the romantic, which was more active than it had ever been. I do not allude to the impulse it received as she gazed at the Pyramids in the course of an excursion from Cairo, or as she stood among the broken columns of the Acropolis and fixed her eyes upon the point designated to her as the Strait of Salamis; deep and memorable as these emotions had remained. She came back by the last of March from Egypt and Greece and made another stay in Rome. A few days after her arrival Gilbert Osmond descended from Florence and remained three weeks, during which the fact of her being with his old friend Madame Merle, in whose house she had gone to lodge, made it virtually inevitable that he should see her every day. When the last of April came she wrote to Mrs. Touchett that she should now rejoice to accept an invitation given long before, and went to pay a visit at Palazzo Crescentini, Madame Merle on this occasion remaining in Rome. She found her aunt alone; her cousin was still at Corfu. Ralph, however, was expected in Florence from day to day, and Isabel, who had not seen him for upwards of a year, was prepared to give him the most affectionate welcome.

The chapter opens with Isabel sitting at a window of Mrs. Touchett's Palazzo Crescentini, waiting for someone. A year has passed since she had left Florence: during this time, her sister and her sister's husband, the Ludlows, have visited her and toured Switzerland, Paris, and London with her. When they left, she felt free to act: she goes on a trip to the East with Madame Merle. She visits Turkey, Greece, and Egypt. Then she returns to Rome, and Gilbert Osmond comes down to visit her for a few weeks. The narrator has described all of this in the course of a few pages, all as background to the scene in which Isabel is waiting for a mysterious someone to arrive

summary

Isabel came back to Florence, but only after several months; an interval sufficiently replete with incident. It is not, however, during this interval that we are closely concerned with her; our attention is engaged again on a certain day in the late spring-time, shortly after her return to Palazzo Crescentini and a year from the date of the incidents just narrated. She was alone on this occasion, in one of the smaller of the numerous rooms devoted by Mrs. Touchett to social uses, and there was that in her expression and attitude which would have suggested that she was expecting a visitor. The tall window was open, and though its green shutters were partly drawn the bright air of the garden had come in through a broad interstice and filled the room with warmth and perfume. Our young woman stood near it for some time, her hands clasped behind her; she gazed abroad with the vagueness of unrest. Too troubled for attention she moved in a vain circle. Yet it could not be in her thought to catch a glimpse of her visitor before he should pass into the house, since the entrance to the palace was not through the garden, in which stillness and privacy always reigned. She wished rather to forestall his arrival by a process of conjecture, and to judge by the expression of her face this attempt gave her plenty to do. Grave she found herself, and positively more weighted, as by the experience of the lapse of the year she had spent in seeing the world. She had ranged, she would have said, through space and surveyed much of mankind, and was therefore now, in her own eyes, a very different person from the frivolous young woman from Albany who had begun to take the measure of Europe on the lawn at Gardencourt a couple of years before. She flattered herself she had harvested wisdom and learned a great deal more of life than this light-minded creature had even suspected. If her thoughts just now had inclined themselves to retrospect, instead of fluttering their wings nervously about the present, they would have evoked a multitude of interesting pictures. These pictures would have been both landscapes and figure-pieces; the latter, however, would have been the more numerous. With several of the images that might have been projected on such a field we are already acquainted. There would be for instance the conciliatory Lily, our heroine's sister and Edmund Ludlow's wife, who had come out from New York to spend five months with her relative. She had left her husband behind her, but had brought her children, to whom Isabel now played with equal munificence and tenderness the part of maiden-aunt. Mr. Ludlow, toward the last, had been able to snatch a few weeks from his forensic triumphs and, crossing the ocean with extreme rapidity, had spent a month with the two ladies in Paris before taking his wife home. The little Ludlows had not yet, even from the American point of view, reached the proper tourist-age; so that while her sister was with her Isabel had confined her movements to a narrow circle. Lily and the babies had joined her in Switzerland in the month of July, and they had spent a summer of fine weather in an Alpine valley where the flowers were thick in the meadows and the shade of great chestnuts made a resting-place for such upward wanderings as might be undertaken by ladies and children on warm afternoons. They had afterwards reached the French capital, which was worshipped, and with costly ceremonies, by Lily, but thought of as noisily vacant by Isabel, who in these days made use of her memory of Rome as she might have done, in a hot and crowded room, of a phial of something pungent hidden in her handkerchief. Mrs. Ludlow sacrificed, as I say, to Paris, yet had doubts and wonderments not allayed at that altar; and after her husband had joined her found further chagrin in his failure to throw himself into these speculations. They all had Isabel for subject; but Edmund Ludlow, as he had always done before, declined to be surprised, or distressed, or mystified, or elated, at anything his sister-in-law might have done or have failed to do. Mrs. Ludlow's mental motions were sufficiently various. At one moment she thought it would be so natural for that young woman to come home and take a house in New York--the Rossiters', for instance, which had an elegant conservatory and was just round the corner from her own; at another she couldn't conceal her surprise at the girl's not marrying some member of one of the great aristocracies. On the whole, as I have said, she had fallen from high communion with the probabilities. She had taken more satisfaction in Isabel's accession of fortune than if the money had been left to herself; it had seemed to her to offer just the proper setting for her sister's slightly meagre, but scarce the less eminent figure. Isabel had developed less, however, than Lily had thought likely--development, to Lily's understanding, being somehow mysteriously connected with morning-calls and evening-parties. Intellectually, doubtless, she had made immense strides; but she appeared to have achieved few of those social conquests of which Mrs. Ludlow had expected to admire the trophies. Lily's conception of such achievements was extremely vague; but this was exactly what she had expected of Isabel--to give it form and body. Isabel could have done as well as she had done in New York; and Mrs. Ludlow appealed to her husband to know whether there was any privilege she enjoyed in Europe which the society of that city might not offer her. We know ourselves that Isabel had made conquests--whether inferior or not to those she might have effected in her native land it would be a delicate matter to decide; and it is not altogether with a feeling of complacency that I again mention that she had not rendered these honourable victories public. She had not told her sister the history of Lord Warburton, nor had she given her a hint of Mr. Osmond's state of mind; and she had had no better reason for her silence than that she didn't wish to speak. It was more romantic to say nothing, and, drinking deep, in secret, of romance, she was as little disposed to ask poor Lily's advice as she would have been to close that rare volume forever. But Lily knew nothing of these discriminations, and could only pronounce her sister's career a strange anti-climax--an impression confirmed by the fact that Isabel's silence about Mr. Osmond, for instance, was in direct proportion to the frequency with which he occupied her thoughts. As this happened very often it sometimes appeared to Mrs. Ludlow that she had lost her courage. So uncanny a result of so exhilarating an incident as inheriting a fortune was of course perplexing to the cheerful Lily; it added to her general sense that Isabel was not at all like other people. Our young lady's courage, however, might have been taken as reaching its height after her relations had gone home. She could imagine braver things than spending the winter in Paris--Paris had sides by which it so resembled New York, Paris was like smart, neat prose--and her close correspondence with Madame Merle did much to stimulate such flights. She had never had a keener sense of freedom, of the absolute boldness and wantonness of liberty, than when she turned away from the platform at the Euston Station on one of the last days of November, after the departure of the train that was to convey poor Lily, her husband and her children to their ship at Liverpool. It had been good for her to regale; she was very conscious of that; she was very observant, as we know, of what was good for her, and her effort was constantly to find something that was good enough. To profit by the present advantage till the latest moment she had made the journey from Paris with the unenvied travellers. She would have accompanied them to Liverpool as well, only Edmund Ludlow had asked her, as a favour, not to do so; it made Lily so fidgety and she asked such impossible questions. Isabel watched the train move away; she kissed her hand to the elder of her small nephews, a demonstrative child who leaned dangerously far out of the window of the carriage and made separation an occasion of violent hilarity, and then she walked back into the foggy London street. The world lay before her--she could do whatever she chose. There was a deep thrill in it all, but for the present her choice was tolerably discreet; she chose simply to walk back from Euston Square to her hotel. The early dusk of a November afternoon had already closed in; the street-lamps, in the thick, brown air, looked weak and red; our heroine was unattended and Euston Square was a long way from Piccadilly. But Isabel performed the journey with a positive enjoyment of its dangers and lost her way almost on purpose, in order to get more sensations, so that she was disappointed when an obliging policeman easily set her right again. She was so fond of the spectacle of human life that she enjoyed even the aspect of gathering dusk in the London streets--the moving crowds, the hurrying cabs, the lighted shops, the flaring stalls, the dark, shining dampness of everything. That evening, at her hotel, she wrote to Madame Merle that she should start in a day or two for Rome. She made her way down to Rome without touching at Florence--having gone first to Venice and then proceeded southward by Ancona. She accomplished this journey without other assistance than that of her servant, for her natural protectors were not now on the ground. Ralph Touchett was spending the winter at Corfu, and Miss Stackpole, in the September previous, had been recalled to America by a telegram from the Interviewer. This journal offered its brilliant correspondent a fresher field for her genius than the mouldering cities of Europe, and Henrietta was cheered on her way by a promise from Mr. Bantling that he would soon come over to see her. Isabel wrote to Mrs. Touchett to apologise for not presenting herself just yet in Florence, and her aunt replied characteristically enough. Apologies, Mrs. Touchett intimated, were of no more use to her than bubbles, and she herself never dealt in such articles. One either did the thing or one didn't, and what one "would" have done belonged to the sphere of the irrelevant, like the idea of a future life or of the origin of things. Her letter was frank, but (a rare case with Mrs. Touchett) not so frank as it pretended. She easily forgave her niece for not stopping at Florence, because she took it for a sign that Gilbert Osmond was less in question there than formerly. She watched of course to see if he would now find a pretext for going to Rome, and derived some comfort from learning that he had not been guilty of an absence. Isabel, on her side, had not been a fortnight in Rome before she proposed to Madame Merle that they should make a little pilgrimage to the East. Madame Merle remarked that her friend was restless, but she added that she herself had always been consumed with the desire to visit Athens and Constantinople. The two ladies accordingly embarked on this expedition, and spent three months in Greece, in Turkey, in Egypt. Isabel found much to interest her in these countries, though Madame Merle continued to remark that even among the most classic sites, the scenes most calculated to suggest repose and reflexion, a certain incoherence prevailed in her. Isabel travelled rapidly and recklessly; she was like a thirsty person draining cup after cup. Madame Merle meanwhile, as lady-in-waiting to a princess circulating incognita, panted a little in her rear. It was on Isabel's invitation she had come, and she imparted all due dignity to the girl's uncountenanced state. She played her part with the tact that might have been expected of her, effacing herself and accepting the position of a companion whose expenses were profusely paid. The situation, however, had no hardships, and people who met this reserved though striking pair on their travels would not have been able to tell you which was patroness and which client. To say that Madame Merle improved on acquaintance states meagrely the impression she made on her friend, who had found her from the first so ample and so easy. At the end of an intimacy of three months Isabel felt she knew her better; her character had revealed itself, and the admirable woman had also at last redeemed her promise of relating her history from her own point of view--a consummation the more desirable as Isabel had already heard it related from the point of view of others. This history was so sad a one (in so far as it concerned the late M. Merle, a positive adventurer, she might say, though originally so plausible, who had taken advantage, years before, of her youth and of an inexperience in which doubtless those who knew her only now would find it difficult to believe); it abounded so in startling and lamentable incidents that her companion wondered a person so eprouvee could have kept so much of her freshness, her interest in life. Into this freshness of Madame Merle's she obtained a considerable insight; she seemed to see it as professional, as slightly mechanical, carried about in its case like the fiddle of the virtuoso, or blanketed and bridled like the "favourite" of the jockey. She liked her as much as ever, but there was a corner of the curtain that never was lifted; it was as if she had remained after all something of a public performer, condemned to emerge only in character and in costume. She had once said that she came from a distance, that she belonged to the "old, old" world, and Isabel never lost the impression that she was the product of a different moral or social clime from her own, that she had grown up under other stars. She believed then that at bottom she had a different morality. Of course the morality of civilised persons has always much in common; but our young woman had a sense in her of values gone wrong or, as they said at the shops, marked down. She considered, with the presumption of youth, that a morality differing from her own must be inferior to it; and this conviction was an aid to detecting an occasional flash of cruelty, an occasional lapse from candour, in the conversation of a person who had raised delicate kindness to an art and whose pride was too high for the narrow ways of deception. Her conception of human motives might, in certain lights, have been acquired at the court of some kingdom in decadence, and there were several in her list of which our heroine had not even heard. She had not heard of everything, that was very plain; and there were evidently things in the world of which it was not advantageous to hear. She had once or twice had a positive scare; since it so affected her to have to exclaim, of her friend, "Heaven forgive her, she doesn't understand me!" Absurd as it may seem this discovery operated as a shock, left her with a vague dismay in which there was even an element of foreboding. The dismay of course subsided, in the light of some sudden proof of Madame Merle's remarkable intelligence; but it stood for a high-water-mark in the ebb and flow of confidence. Madame Merle had once declared her belief that when a friendship ceases to grow it immediately begins to decline--there being no point of equilibrium between liking more and liking less. A stationary affection, in other words, was impossible--it must move one way or the other. However that might be, the girl had in these days a thousand uses for her sense of the romantic, which was more active than it had ever been. I do not allude to the impulse it received as she gazed at the Pyramids in the course of an excursion from Cairo, or as she stood among the broken columns of the Acropolis and fixed her eyes upon the point designated to her as the Strait of Salamis; deep and memorable as these emotions had remained. She came back by the last of March from Egypt and Greece and made another stay in Rome. A few days after her arrival Gilbert Osmond descended from Florence and remained three weeks, during which the fact of her being with his old friend Madame Merle, in whose house she had gone to lodge, made it virtually inevitable that he should see her every day. When the last of April came she wrote to Mrs. Touchett that she should now rejoice to accept an invitation given long before, and went to pay a visit at Palazzo Crescentini, Madame Merle on this occasion remaining in Rome. She found her aunt alone; her cousin was still at Corfu. Ralph, however, was expected in Florence from day to day, and Isabel, who had not seen him for upwards of a year, was prepared to give him the most affectionate welcome.

. It is notable too, that this reminiscence of Isabel's travels is contextualized in her mind's eye -- she is awaiting Caspar Goodwood, and thinking about how much she herself has changed since she last saw him. This is a common technique that Henry James employs: the narrator lends some more concrete words for the very vague reminiscences of a character, allowing that character to reflect upon their own experiences, but also allowing the reader to reap the benefit of a more objective, summary view of certain events. "If her thoughts just now had inclined themselves to retrospect, instead of fluttering their wings nervously about the present, they would have evoked a multitude of interesting pictures," the narrator tells us. This again is called "hypothetical discourse" as coined by scholar Arlene Young . Isabel's reaction in Chapter 32 to Caspar Goodwood is curiously physical and emotional. Is she really as disinterested in him as she claims to be? The novel itself deals very little with strong, physical outbursts of emotions: Isabel's scenes with Caspar Goodwood are an exception to the rule. One theory is that Isabel is sexually attracted to Goodwood, but her Victorian prudery makes her repress this idea; she wants to escape her own sexuality in his presence. It is important to notice the reactions of others to Isabel's engagement, and how Isabel's resolution becomes more concrete in the face of their opposition. In her conversation with Mrs. Touchett, she does not quite know why she wants to marry Osmond, and she can barely articulate it. When she discusses her motivations with Ralph, her own conviction becomes more concrete. "His opposition had made her own conception of her conduct clearer to her," the narrator tells us. Ralph says that he had thought of the great "idea" she would actualize in the world only in the "negative" -- but we should notice that her marrying Osmond is actually an articulation of a negative idea -- of an idea that exists only as one in opposition to others' opinions. In other words, she feels like she freely chooses her marriage to Osmond mostly because no one in her circle seems to approve of the engagement. So the narrator tells us, the disapproval of others for Isabel "served mainly to throw into higher relief, in every way so honourable, that she married to please herself." Osmond's narcissism becomes apparent in Chapter 35. It is notable how he thinks of Isabel as a fine object, a present made to him by Madame Merle, rather than seeming to really be in love with her. Again, there is a comparison between a person and a commodity: he thinks of Isabel as a "silver plate." Consider the coldness of this extended metaphor - he continues to think of how he will heap fruits onto this plate. His conception of a good relationship is that the other person reflects one's own thoughts back to oneself -- it seems that he will give very little room for Isabel to have ideas of her own. He has the attitude of a connoisseur or collector to a commodity of value. It does not quite fit a more romantic conception of love - of loving Isabel for herself.

analysis

It was not of him, nevertheless, that she was thinking while she stood at the window near which we found her a while ago, and it was not of any of the matters I have rapidly sketched. She was not turned to the past, but to the immediate, impending hour. She had reason to expect a scene, and she was not fond of scenes. She was not asking herself what she should say to her visitor; this question had already been answered. What he would say to her--that was the interesting issue. It could be nothing in the least soothing--she had warrant for this, and the conviction doubtless showed in the cloud on her brow. For the rest, however, all clearness reigned in her; she had put away her mourning and she walked in no small shimmering splendour. She only, felt older--ever so much, and as if she were "worth more" for it, like some curious piece in an antiquary's collection. She was not at any rate left indefinitely to her apprehensions, for a servant at last stood before her with a card on his tray. "Let the gentleman come in," she said, and continued to gaze out of the window after the footman had retired. It was only when she had heard the door close behind the person who presently entered that she looked round. Caspar Goodwood stood there--stood and received a moment, from head to foot, the bright, dry gaze with which she rather withheld than offered a greeting. Whether his sense of maturity had kept pace with Isabel's we shall perhaps presently ascertain; let me say meanwhile that to her critical glance he showed nothing of the injury of time. Straight, strong and hard, there was nothing in his appearance that spoke positively either of youth or of age; if he had neither innocence nor weakness, so he had no practical philosophy. His jaw showed the same voluntary cast as in earlier days; but a crisis like the present had in it of course something grim. He had the air of a man who had travelled hard; he said nothing at first, as if he had been out of breath. This gave Isabel time to make a reflexion: "Poor fellow, what great things he's capable of, and what a pity he should waste so dreadfully his splendid force! What a pity too that one can't satisfy everybody!" It gave her time to do more to say at the end of a minute: "I can't tell you how I hoped you wouldn't come!" "I've no doubt of that." And he looked about him for a seat. Not only had he come, but he meant to settle. "You must be very tired," said Isabel, seating herself, and generously, as she thought, to give him his opportunity. "No, I'm not at all tired. Did you ever know me to be tired?" "Never; I wish I had! When did you arrive?" "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." "That's in keeping--you must have felt as if you were coming to bury me!" And she forced a smile of encouragement to an easy view of their situation. She had reasoned the matter well out, making it perfectly clear that she broke no faith and falsified no contract; but for all this she was afraid of her visitor. She was ashamed of her fear; but she was devoutly thankful there was nothing else to be ashamed of. He looked at her with his stiff insistence, an insistence in which there was such a want of tact; especially when the dull dark beam in his eye rested on her as a physical weight. "No, I didn't feel that; I couldn't think of you as dead. I wish I could!" he candidly declared. "I thank you immensely." "I'd rather think of you as dead than as married to another man." "That's very selfish of you!" she returned with the ardour of a real conviction. "If you're not happy yourself others have yet a right to be." "Very likely it's selfish; but I don't in the least mind your saying so. I don't mind anything you can say now--I don't feel it. The cruellest things you could think of would be mere pin-pricks. After what you've done I shall never feel anything--I mean anything but that. That I shall feel all my life." Mr. Goodwood made these detached assertions with dry deliberateness, in his hard, slow American tone, which flung no atmospheric colour over propositions intrinsically crude. The tone made Isabel angry rather than touched her; but her anger perhaps was fortunate, inasmuch as it gave her a further reason for controlling herself. It was under the pressure of this control that she became, after a little, irrelevant. "When did you leave New York?" He threw up his head as if calculating. "Seventeen days ago." "You must have travelled fast in spite of your slow trains." "I came as fast as I could. I'd have come five days ago if I had been able." "It wouldn't have made any difference, Mr. Goodwood," she coldly smiled. "Not to you--no. But to me." "You gain nothing that I see." "That's for me to judge!" "Of course. To me it seems that you only torment yourself." And then, to change the subject, she asked him if he had seen Henrietta Stackpole. He looked as if he had not come from Boston to Florence to talk of Henrietta Stackpole; but he answered, distinctly enough, that this young lady had been with him just before he left America. "She came to see you?" Isabel then demanded. "Yes, she was in Boston, and she called at my office. It was the day I had got your letter." "Did you tell her?" Isabel asked with a certain anxiety. "Oh no," said Caspar Goodwood simply; "I didn't want to do that. She'll hear it quick enough; she hears everything." "I shall write to her, and then she'll write to me and scold me," Isabel declared, trying to smile again. Caspar, however, remained sternly grave. "I guess she'll come right out," he said. "On purpose to scold me?" "I don't know. She seemed to think she had not seen Europe thoroughly." "I'm glad you tell me that," Isabel said. "I must prepare for her." Mr. Goodwood fixed his eyes for a moment on the floor; then at last, raising them, "Does she know Mr. Osmond?" he enquired. "A little. And she doesn't like him. But of course I don't marry to please Henrietta," she added. It would have been better for poor Caspar if she had tried a little more to gratify Miss Stackpole; but he didn't say so; he only asked, presently, when her marriage would take place. To which she made answer that she didn't know yet. "I can only say it will be soon. I've told no one but yourself and one other person--an old friend of Mr. Osmond's." "Is it a marriage your friends won't like?" he demanded. "I really haven't an idea. As I say, I don't marry for my friends." He went on, making no exclamation, no comment, only asking questions, doing it quite without delicacy. "Who and what then is Mr. Gilbert Osmond?" "Who and what? Nobody and nothing but a very good and very honourable man. He's not in business," said Isabel. "He's not rich; he's not known for anything in particular." She disliked Mr. Goodwood's questions, but she said to herself that she owed it to him to satisfy him as far as possible. The satisfaction poor Caspar exhibited was, however, small; he sat very upright, gazing at her. "Where does he come from? Where does he belong?" She had never been so little pleased with the way he said "belawng." "He comes from nowhere. He has spent most of his life in Italy." "You said in your letter he was American. Hasn't he a native place?" "Yes, but he has forgotten it. He left it as a small boy." "Has he never gone back?" "Why should he go back?" Isabel asked, flushing all defensively. "He has no profession." "He might have gone back for his pleasure. Doesn't he like the United States?" "He doesn't know them. Then he's very quiet and very simple--he contents himself with Italy." "With Italy and with you," said Mr. Goodwood with gloomy plainness and no appearance of trying to make an epigram. "What has he ever done?" he added abruptly. "That I should marry him? Nothing at all," Isabel replied while her patience helped itself by turning a little to hardness. "If he had done great things would you forgive me any better? Give me up, Mr. Goodwood; I'm marrying a perfect nonentity. Don't try to take an interest in him. You can't." "I can't appreciate him; that's what you mean. And you don't mean in the least that he's a perfect nonentity. You think he's grand, you think he's great, though no one else thinks so." Isabel's colour deepened; she felt this really acute of her companion, and it was certainly a proof of the aid that passion might render perceptions she had never taken for fine. "Why do you always come back to what others think? I can't discuss Mr. Osmond with you." "Of course not," said Caspar reasonably. And he sat there with his air of stiff helplessness, as if not only this were true, but there were nothing else that they might discuss. "You see how little you gain," she accordingly broke out--"how little comfort or satisfaction I can give you." "I didn't expect you to give me much." "I don't understand then why you came." "I came because I wanted to see you once more--even just as you are." "I appreciate that; but if you had waited a while, sooner or later we should have been sure to meet, and our meeting would have been pleasanter for each of us than this." "Waited till after you're married? That's just what I didn't want to do. You'll be different then." "Not very. I shall still be a great friend of yours. You'll see." "That will make it all the worse," said Mr. Goodwood grimly. "Ah, you're unaccommodating! I can't promise to dislike you in order to help you to resign yourself." "I shouldn't care if you did!" Isabel got up with a movement of repressed impatience and walked to the window, where she remained a moment looking out. When she turned round her visitor was still motionless in his place. She came toward him again and stopped, resting her hand on the back of the chair she had just quitted. "Do you mean you came simply to look at me? That's better for you perhaps than for me." "I wished to hear the sound of your voice," he said. "You've heard it, and you see it says nothing very sweet." "It gives me pleasure, all the same." And with this he got up. She had felt pain and displeasure on receiving early that day the news he was in Florence and by her leave would come within an hour to see her. She had been vexed and distressed, though she had sent back word by his messenger that he might come when he would. She had not been better pleased when she saw him; his being there at all was so full of heavy implications. It implied things she could never assent to--rights, reproaches, remonstrance, rebuke, the expectation of making her change her purpose. These things, however, if implied, had not been expressed; and now our young lady, strangely enough, began to resent her visitor's remarkable self-control. There was a dumb misery about him that irritated her; there was a manly staying of his hand that made her heart beat faster. She felt her agitation rising, and she said to herself that she was angry in the way a woman is angry when she has been in the wrong. She was not in the wrong; she had fortunately not that bitterness to swallow; but, all the same, she wished he would denounce her a little. She had wished his visit would be short; it had no purpose, no propriety; yet now that he seemed to be turning away she felt a sudden horror of his leaving her without uttering a word that would give her an opportunity to defend herself more than she had done in writing to him a month before, in a few carefully chosen words, to announce her engagement. If she were not in the wrong, however, why should she desire to defend herself? It was an excess of generosity on Isabel's part to desire that Mr. Goodwood should be angry. And if he had not meanwhile held himself hard it might have made him so to hear the tone in which she suddenly exclaimed, as if she were accusing him of having accused her: "I've not deceived you! I was perfectly free!" "Yes, I know that," said Caspar. "I gave you full warning that I'd do as I chose." "You said you'd probably never marry, and you said it with such a manner that I pretty well believed it." She considered this an instant. "No one can be more surprised than myself at my present intention." "You told me that if I heard you were engaged I was not to believe it," Caspar went on. "I heard it twenty days ago from yourself, but I remembered what you had said. I thought there might be some mistake, and that's partly why I came." "If you wish me to repeat it by word of mouth, that's soon done. There's no mistake whatever." "I saw that as soon as I came into the room." "What good would it do you that I shouldn't marry?" she asked with a certain fierceness. "I should like it better than this." "You're very selfish, as I said before." "I know that. I'm selfish as iron." "Even iron sometimes melts! If you'll be reasonable I'll see you again." "Don't you call me reasonable now?" "I don't know what to say to you," she answered with sudden humility. "I shan't trouble you for a long time," the young man went on. He made a step towards the door, but he stopped. "Another reason why I came was that I wanted to hear what you would say in explanation of your having changed your mind." Her humbleness as suddenly deserted her. "In explanation? Do you think I'm bound to explain?" He gave her one of his long dumb looks. "You were very positive. I did believe it." "So did I. Do you think I could explain if I would?" "No, I suppose not. Well," he added, "I've done what I wished. I've seen you." "How little you make of these terrible journeys," she felt the poverty of her presently replying. "If you're afraid I'm knocked up--in any such way as that--you may be at your ease about it." He turned away, this time in earnest, and no hand-shake, no sign of parting, was exchanged between them. At the door he stopped with his hand on the knob. "I shall leave Florence to-morrow," he said without a quaver. "I'm delighted to hear it!" she answered passionately. Five minutes after he had gone out she burst into tears.

We learn that Isabel is waiting for Caspar Goodwood. Isabel tells her that she wishes he had not come. Mr. Goodwood tells her that after what she has done to him he shall never feel anything for the rest of his life - just what she has done to him. Isabel notes that she will have to prepare for Henrietta arriving, and Goodwood asks if Henrietta knows of Mr. Osmond. Isabel says that she does not marry to please Henrietta. Isabel claims that she does not marry for any of her friends, and that she is marrying a "perfect nonentity". Isabel feels agitation upon seeing Caspar Goodwood in his misery. But as he is leaving, she is afraid he will not utter the word that will give her the opportunity to defend herself. Although, the narrator wonders, if she has done nothing wrong, why is she so eager to defend herself. The narrator concludes that she is being generous to Goodwood. She claims she never deceived him, and that she was perfectly free. Caspar tells her he came to see for himself. He admits that he is selfish and would want her to be married to no one if she would not marry him. When he leaves, she breaks into a fit of weeping

summary

It was not of him, nevertheless, that she was thinking while she stood at the window near which we found her a while ago, and it was not of any of the matters I have rapidly sketched. She was not turned to the past, but to the immediate, impending hour. She had reason to expect a scene, and she was not fond of scenes. She was not asking herself what she should say to her visitor; this question had already been answered. What he would say to her--that was the interesting issue. It could be nothing in the least soothing--she had warrant for this, and the conviction doubtless showed in the cloud on her brow. For the rest, however, all clearness reigned in her; she had put away her mourning and she walked in no small shimmering splendour. She only, felt older--ever so much, and as if she were "worth more" for it, like some curious piece in an antiquary's collection. She was not at any rate left indefinitely to her apprehensions, for a servant at last stood before her with a card on his tray. "Let the gentleman come in," she said, and continued to gaze out of the window after the footman had retired. It was only when she had heard the door close behind the person who presently entered that she looked round. Caspar Goodwood stood there--stood and received a moment, from head to foot, the bright, dry gaze with which she rather withheld than offered a greeting. Whether his sense of maturity had kept pace with Isabel's we shall perhaps presently ascertain; let me say meanwhile that to her critical glance he showed nothing of the injury of time. Straight, strong and hard, there was nothing in his appearance that spoke positively either of youth or of age; if he had neither innocence nor weakness, so he had no practical philosophy. His jaw showed the same voluntary cast as in earlier days; but a crisis like the present had in it of course something grim. He had the air of a man who had travelled hard; he said nothing at first, as if he had been out of breath. This gave Isabel time to make a reflexion: "Poor fellow, what great things he's capable of, and what a pity he should waste so dreadfully his splendid force! What a pity too that one can't satisfy everybody!" It gave her time to do more to say at the end of a minute: "I can't tell you how I hoped you wouldn't come!" "I've no doubt of that." And he looked about him for a seat. Not only had he come, but he meant to settle. "You must be very tired," said Isabel, seating herself, and generously, as she thought, to give him his opportunity. "No, I'm not at all tired. Did you ever know me to be tired?" "Never; I wish I had! When did you arrive?" "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." "That's in keeping--you must have felt as if you were coming to bury me!" And she forced a smile of encouragement to an easy view of their situation. She had reasoned the matter well out, making it perfectly clear that she broke no faith and falsified no contract; but for all this she was afraid of her visitor. She was ashamed of her fear; but she was devoutly thankful there was nothing else to be ashamed of. He looked at her with his stiff insistence, an insistence in which there was such a want of tact; especially when the dull dark beam in his eye rested on her as a physical weight. "No, I didn't feel that; I couldn't think of you as dead. I wish I could!" he candidly declared. "I thank you immensely." "I'd rather think of you as dead than as married to another man." "That's very selfish of you!" she returned with the ardour of a real conviction. "If you're not happy yourself others have yet a right to be." "Very likely it's selfish; but I don't in the least mind your saying so. I don't mind anything you can say now--I don't feel it. The cruellest things you could think of would be mere pin-pricks. After what you've done I shall never feel anything--I mean anything but that. That I shall feel all my life." Mr. Goodwood made these detached assertions with dry deliberateness, in his hard, slow American tone, which flung no atmospheric colour over propositions intrinsically crude. The tone made Isabel angry rather than touched her; but her anger perhaps was fortunate, inasmuch as it gave her a further reason for controlling herself. It was under the pressure of this control that she became, after a little, irrelevant. "When did you leave New York?" He threw up his head as if calculating. "Seventeen days ago." "You must have travelled fast in spite of your slow trains." "I came as fast as I could. I'd have come five days ago if I had been able." "It wouldn't have made any difference, Mr. Goodwood," she coldly smiled. "Not to you--no. But to me." "You gain nothing that I see." "That's for me to judge!" "Of course. To me it seems that you only torment yourself." And then, to change the subject, she asked him if he had seen Henrietta Stackpole. He looked as if he had not come from Boston to Florence to talk of Henrietta Stackpole; but he answered, distinctly enough, that this young lady had been with him just before he left America. "She came to see you?" Isabel then demanded. "Yes, she was in Boston, and she called at my office. It was the day I had got your letter." "Did you tell her?" Isabel asked with a certain anxiety. "Oh no," said Caspar Goodwood simply; "I didn't want to do that. She'll hear it quick enough; she hears everything." "I shall write to her, and then she'll write to me and scold me," Isabel declared, trying to smile again. Caspar, however, remained sternly grave. "I guess she'll come right out," he said. "On purpose to scold me?" "I don't know. She seemed to think she had not seen Europe thoroughly." "I'm glad you tell me that," Isabel said. "I must prepare for her." Mr. Goodwood fixed his eyes for a moment on the floor; then at last, raising them, "Does she know Mr. Osmond?" he enquired. "A little. And she doesn't like him. But of course I don't marry to please Henrietta," she added. It would have been better for poor Caspar if she had tried a little more to gratify Miss Stackpole; but he didn't say so; he only asked, presently, when her marriage would take place. To which she made answer that she didn't know yet. "I can only say it will be soon. I've told no one but yourself and one other person--an old friend of Mr. Osmond's." "Is it a marriage your friends won't like?" he demanded. "I really haven't an idea. As I say, I don't marry for my friends." He went on, making no exclamation, no comment, only asking questions, doing it quite without delicacy. "Who and what then is Mr. Gilbert Osmond?" "Who and what? Nobody and nothing but a very good and very honourable man. He's not in business," said Isabel. "He's not rich; he's not known for anything in particular." She disliked Mr. Goodwood's questions, but she said to herself that she owed it to him to satisfy him as far as possible. The satisfaction poor Caspar exhibited was, however, small; he sat very upright, gazing at her. "Where does he come from? Where does he belong?" She had never been so little pleased with the way he said "belawng." "He comes from nowhere. He has spent most of his life in Italy." "You said in your letter he was American. Hasn't he a native place?" "Yes, but he has forgotten it. He left it as a small boy." "Has he never gone back?" "Why should he go back?" Isabel asked, flushing all defensively. "He has no profession." "He might have gone back for his pleasure. Doesn't he like the United States?" "He doesn't know them. Then he's very quiet and very simple--he contents himself with Italy." "With Italy and with you," said Mr. Goodwood with gloomy plainness and no appearance of trying to make an epigram. "What has he ever done?" he added abruptly. "That I should marry him? Nothing at all," Isabel replied while her patience helped itself by turning a little to hardness. "If he had done great things would you forgive me any better? Give me up, Mr. Goodwood; I'm marrying a perfect nonentity. Don't try to take an interest in him. You can't." "I can't appreciate him; that's what you mean. And you don't mean in the least that he's a perfect nonentity. You think he's grand, you think he's great, though no one else thinks so." Isabel's colour deepened; she felt this really acute of her companion, and it was certainly a proof of the aid that passion might render perceptions she had never taken for fine. "Why do you always come back to what others think? I can't discuss Mr. Osmond with you." "Of course not," said Caspar reasonably. And he sat there with his air of stiff helplessness, as if not only this were true, but there were nothing else that they might discuss. "You see how little you gain," she accordingly broke out--"how little comfort or satisfaction I can give you." "I didn't expect you to give me much." "I don't understand then why you came." "I came because I wanted to see you once more--even just as you are." "I appreciate that; but if you had waited a while, sooner or later we should have been sure to meet, and our meeting would have been pleasanter for each of us than this." "Waited till after you're married? That's just what I didn't want to do. You'll be different then." "Not very. I shall still be a great friend of yours. You'll see." "That will make it all the worse," said Mr. Goodwood grimly. "Ah, you're unaccommodating! I can't promise to dislike you in order to help you to resign yourself." "I shouldn't care if you did!" Isabel got up with a movement of repressed impatience and walked to the window, where she remained a moment looking out. When she turned round her visitor was still motionless in his place. She came toward him again and stopped, resting her hand on the back of the chair she had just quitted. "Do you mean you came simply to look at me? That's better for you perhaps than for me." "I wished to hear the sound of your voice," he said. "You've heard it, and you see it says nothing very sweet." "It gives me pleasure, all the same." And with this he got up. She had felt pain and displeasure on receiving early that day the news he was in Florence and by her leave would come within an hour to see her. She had been vexed and distressed, though she had sent back word by his messenger that he might come when he would. She had not been better pleased when she saw him; his being there at all was so full of heavy implications. It implied things she could never assent to--rights, reproaches, remonstrance, rebuke, the expectation of making her change her purpose. These things, however, if implied, had not been expressed; and now our young lady, strangely enough, began to resent her visitor's remarkable self-control. There was a dumb misery about him that irritated her; there was a manly staying of his hand that made her heart beat faster. She felt her agitation rising, and she said to herself that she was angry in the way a woman is angry when she has been in the wrong. She was not in the wrong; she had fortunately not that bitterness to swallow; but, all the same, she wished he would denounce her a little. She had wished his visit would be short; it had no purpose, no propriety; yet now that he seemed to be turning away she felt a sudden horror of his leaving her without uttering a word that would give her an opportunity to defend herself more than she had done in writing to him a month before, in a few carefully chosen words, to announce her engagement. If she were not in the wrong, however, why should she desire to defend herself? It was an excess of generosity on Isabel's part to desire that Mr. Goodwood should be angry. And if he had not meanwhile held himself hard it might have made him so to hear the tone in which she suddenly exclaimed, as if she were accusing him of having accused her: "I've not deceived you! I was perfectly free!" "Yes, I know that," said Caspar. "I gave you full warning that I'd do as I chose." "You said you'd probably never marry, and you said it with such a manner that I pretty well believed it." She considered this an instant. "No one can be more surprised than myself at my present intention." "You told me that if I heard you were engaged I was not to believe it," Caspar went on. "I heard it twenty days ago from yourself, but I remembered what you had said. I thought there might be some mistake, and that's partly why I came." "If you wish me to repeat it by word of mouth, that's soon done. There's no mistake whatever." "I saw that as soon as I came into the room." "What good would it do you that I shouldn't marry?" she asked with a certain fierceness. "I should like it better than this." "You're very selfish, as I said before." "I know that. I'm selfish as iron." "Even iron sometimes melts! If you'll be reasonable I'll see you again." "Don't you call me reasonable now?" "I don't know what to say to you," she answered with sudden humility. "I shan't trouble you for a long time," the young man went on. He made a step towards the door, but he stopped. "Another reason why I came was that I wanted to hear what you would say in explanation of your having changed your mind." Her humbleness as suddenly deserted her. "In explanation? Do you think I'm bound to explain?" He gave her one of his long dumb looks. "You were very positive. I did believe it." "So did I. Do you think I could explain if I would?" "No, I suppose not. Well," he added, "I've done what I wished. I've seen you." "How little you make of these terrible journeys," she felt the poverty of her presently replying. "If you're afraid I'm knocked up--in any such way as that--you may be at your ease about it." He turned away, this time in earnest, and no hand-shake, no sign of parting, was exchanged between them. At the door he stopped with his hand on the knob. "I shall leave Florence to-morrow," he said without a quaver. "I'm delighted to hear it!" she answered passionately. Five minutes after he had gone out she burst into tears.

. It is notable too, that this reminiscence of Isabel's travels is contextualized in her mind's eye -- she is awaiting Caspar Goodwood, and thinking about how much she herself has changed since she last saw him. This is a common technique that Henry James employs: the narrator lends some more concrete words for the very vague reminiscences of a character, allowing that character to reflect upon their own experiences, but also allowing the reader to reap the benefit of a more objective, summary view of certain events. "If her thoughts just now had inclined themselves to retrospect, instead of fluttering their wings nervously about the present, they would have evoked a multitude of interesting pictures," the narrator tells us. This again is called "hypothetical discourse" as coined by scholar Arlene Young . Isabel's reaction in Chapter 32 to Caspar Goodwood is curiously physical and emotional. Is she really as disinterested in him as she claims to be? The novel itself deals very little with strong, physical outbursts of emotions: Isabel's scenes with Caspar Goodwood are an exception to the rule. One theory is that Isabel is sexually attracted to Goodwood, but her Victorian prudery makes her repress this idea; she wants to escape her own sexuality in his presence. It is important to notice the reactions of others to Isabel's engagement, and how Isabel's resolution becomes more concrete in the face of their opposition. In her conversation with Mrs. Touchett, she does not quite know why she wants to marry Osmond, and she can barely articulate it. When she discusses her motivations with Ralph, her own conviction becomes more concrete. "His opposition had made her own conception of her conduct clearer to her," the narrator tells us. Ralph says that he had thought of the great "idea" she would actualize in the world only in the "negative" -- but we should notice that her marrying Osmond is actually an articulation of a negative idea -- of an idea that exists only as one in opposition to others' opinions. In other words, she feels like she freely chooses her marriage to Osmond mostly because no one in her circle seems to approve of the engagement. So the narrator tells us, the disapproval of others for Isabel "served mainly to throw into higher relief, in every way so honourable, that she married to please herself." Osmond's narcissism becomes apparent in Chapter 35. It is notable how he thinks of Isabel as a fine object, a present made to him by Madame Merle, rather than seeming to really be in love with her. Again, there is a comparison between a person and a commodity: he thinks of Isabel as a "silver plate." Consider the coldness of this extended metaphor - he continues to think of how he will heap fruits onto this plate. His conception of a good relationship is that the other person reflects one's own thoughts back to oneself -- it seems that he will give very little room for Isabel to have ideas of her own. He has the attitude of a connoisseur or collector to a commodity of value. It does not quite fit a more romantic conception of love - of loving Isabel for herself.

analysis

Her fit of weeping, however, was soon smothered, and the signs of it had vanished when, an hour later, she broke the news to her aunt. I use this expression because she had been sure Mrs. Touchett would not be pleased; Isabel had only waited to tell her till she had seen Mr. Goodwood. She had an odd impression that it would not be honourable to make the fact public before she should have heard what Mr. Goodwood would say about it. He had said rather less than she expected, and she now had a somewhat angry sense of having lost time. But she would lose no more; she waited till Mrs. Touchett came into the drawing-room before the mid-day breakfast, and then she began. "Aunt Lydia, I've something to tell you." Mrs. Touchett gave a little jump and looked at her almost fiercely. "You needn't tell me; I know what it is." "I don't know how you know." "The same way that I know when the window's open--by feeling a draught. You're going to marry that man." "What man do you mean?" Isabel enquired with great dignity. "Madame Merle's friend--Mr. Osmond." "I don't know why you call him Madame Merle's friend. Is that the principal thing he's known by?" "If he's not her friend he ought to be--after what she has done for him!" cried Mrs. Touchett. "I shouldn't have expected it of her; I'm disappointed." "If you mean that Madame Merle has had anything to do with my engagement you're greatly mistaken," Isabel declared with a sort of ardent coldness. "You mean that your attractions were sufficient, without the gentleman's having had to be lashed up? You're quite right. They're immense, your attractions, and he would never have presumed to think of you if she hadn't put him up to it. He has a very good opinion of himself, but he was not a man to take trouble. Madame Merle took the trouble for him." "He has taken a great deal for himself!" cried Isabel with a voluntary laugh. Mrs. Touchett gave a sharp nod. "I think he must, after all, to have made you like him so much." "I thought he even pleased YOU." "He did, at one time; and that's why I'm angry with him." "Be angry with me, not with him," said the girl. "Oh, I'm always angry with you; that's no satisfaction! Was it for this that you refused Lord Warburton?" "Please don't go back to that. Why shouldn't I like Mr. Osmond, since others have done so?" "Others, at their wildest moments, never wanted to marry him. There's nothing OF him," Mrs. Touchett explained. "Then he can't hurt me," said Isabel. "Do you think you're going to be happy? No one's happy, in such doings, you should know." "I shall set the fashion then. What does one marry for?" "What YOU will marry for, heaven only knows. People usually marry as they go into partnership--to set up a house. But in your partnership you'll bring everything." "Is it that Mr. Osmond isn't rich? Is that what you're talking about?" Isabel asked. "He has no money; he has no name; he has no importance. I value such things and I have the courage to say it; I think they're very precious. Many other people think the same, and they show it. But they give some other reason." Isabel hesitated a little. "I think I value everything that's valuable. I care very much for money, and that's why I wish Mr. Osmond to have a little." "Give it to him then; but marry some one else." "His name's good enough for me," the girl went on. "It's a very pretty name. Have I such a fine one myself?" "All the more reason you should improve on it. There are only a dozen American names. Do you marry him out of charity?" "It was my duty to tell you, Aunt Lydia, but I don't think it's my duty to explain to you. Even if it were I shouldn't be able. So please don't remonstrate; in talking about it you have me at a disadvantage. I can't talk about it." "I don't remonstrate, I simply answer you: I must give some sign of intelligence. I saw it coming, and I said nothing. I never meddle." "You never do, and I'm greatly obliged to you. You've been very considerate." "It was not considerate--it was convenient," said Mrs. Touchett. "But I shall talk to Madame Merle." "I don't see why you keep bringing her in. She has been a very good friend to me." "Possibly; but she has been a poor one to me." "What has she done to you?" "She has deceived me. She had as good as promised me to prevent your engagement." "She couldn't have prevented it." "She can do anything; that's what I've always liked her for. I knew she could play any part; but I understood that she played them one by one. I didn't understand that she would play two at the same time." "I don't know what part she may have played to you," Isabel said; "that's between yourselves. To me she has been honest and kind and devoted." "Devoted, of course; she wished you to marry her candidate. She told me she was watching you only in order to interpose." "She said that to please you," the girl answered; conscious, however, of the inadequacy of the explanation. "To please me by deceiving me? She knows me better. Am I pleased to-day?" "I don't think you're ever much pleased," Isabel was obliged to reply. "If Madame Merle knew you would learn the truth what had she to gain by insincerity?" "She gained time, as you see. While I waited for her to interfere you were marching away, and she was really beating the drum." "That's very well. But by your own admission you saw I was marching, and even if she had given the alarm you wouldn't have tried to stop me." "No, but some one else would." "Whom do you mean?" Isabel asked, looking very hard at her aunt. Mrs. Touchett's little bright eyes, active as they usually were, sustained her gaze rather than returned it. "Would you have listened to Ralph?" "Not if he had abused Mr. Osmond." "Ralph doesn't abuse people; you know that perfectly. He cares very much for you." "I know he does," said Isabel; "and I shall feel the value of it now, for he knows that whatever I do I do with reason." "He never believed you would do this. I told him you were capable of it, and he argued the other way." "He did it for the sake of argument," the girl smiled. "You don't accuse him of having deceived you; why should you accuse Madame Merle?" "He never pretended he'd prevent it." "I'm glad of that!" cried Isabel gaily. "I wish very much," she presently added, "that when he comes you'd tell him first of my engagement." "Of course I'll mention it," said Mrs. Touchett. "I shall say nothing more to you about it, but I give you notice I shall talk to others." "That's as you please. I only meant that it's rather better the announcement should come from you than from me." "I quite agree with you; it's much more proper!" And on this the aunt and the niece went to breakfast, where Mrs. Touchett, as good as her word, made no allusion to Gilbert Osmond. After an interval of silence, however, she asked her companion from whom she had received a visit an hour before. "From an old friend--an American gentleman," Isabel said with a colour in her cheek. "An American gentleman of course. It's only an American gentleman who calls at ten o'clock in the morning." "It was half-past ten; he was in a great hurry; he goes away this evening." "Couldn't he have come yesterday, at the usual time?" "He only arrived last night." "He spends but twenty-four hours in Florence?" Mrs. Touchett cried. "He's an American gentleman truly." "He is indeed," said Isabel, thinking with perverse admiration of what Caspar Goodwood had done for her. Two days afterward Ralph arrived; but though Isabel was sure that Mrs. Touchett had lost no time in imparting to him the great fact, he showed at first no open knowledge of it. Their prompted talk was naturally of his health; Isabel had many questions to ask about Corfu. She had been shocked by his appearance when he came into the room; she had forgotten how ill he looked. In spite of Corfu he looked very ill to-day, and she wondered if he were really worse or if she were simply disaccustomed to living with an invalid. Poor Ralph made no nearer approach to conventional beauty as he advanced in life, and the now apparently complete loss of his health had done little to mitigate the natural oddity of his person. Blighted and battered, but still responsive and still ironic, his face was like a lighted lantern patched with paper and unsteadily held; his thin whisker languished upon a lean cheek; the exorbitant curve of his nose defined itself more sharply. Lean he was altogether, lean and long and loose-jointed; an accidental cohesion of relaxed angles. His brown velvet jacket had become perennial; his hands had fixed themselves in his pockets; he shambled and stumbled and shuffled in a manner that denoted great physical helplessness. It was perhaps this whimsical gait that helped to mark his character more than ever as that of the humorous invalid--the invalid for whom even his own disabilities are part of the general joke. They might well indeed with Ralph have been the chief cause of the want of seriousness marking his view of a world in which the reason for his own continued presence was past finding out. Isabel had grown fond of his ugliness; his awkwardness had become dear to her. They had been sweetened by association; they struck her as the very terms on which it had been given him to be charming. He was so charming that her sense of his being ill had hitherto had a sort of comfort in it; the state of his health had seemed not a limitation, but a kind of intellectual advantage; it absolved him from all professional and official emotions and left him the luxury of being exclusively personal. The personality so resulting was delightful; he had remained proof against the staleness of disease; he had had to consent to be deplorably ill, yet had somehow escaped being formally sick. Such had been the girl's impression of her cousin; and when she had pitied him it was only on reflection. As she reflected a good deal she had allowed him a certain amount of compassion; but she always had a dread of wasting that essence--a precious article, worth more to the giver than to any one else. Now, however, it took no great sensibility to feel that poor Ralph's tenure of life was less elastic than it should be. He was a bright, free, generous spirit, he had all the illumination of wisdom and none of its pedantry, and yet he was distressfully dying. Isabel noted afresh that life was certainly hard for some people, and she felt a delicate glow of shame as she thought how easy it now promised to become for herself. She was prepared to learn that Ralph was not pleased with her engagement; but she was not prepared, in spite of her affection for him, to let this fact spoil the situation. She was not even prepared, or so she thought, to resent his want of sympathy; for it would be his privilege--it would be indeed his natural line--to find fault with any step she might take toward marriage. One's cousin always pretended to hate one's husband; that was traditional, classical; it was a part of one's cousin's always pretending to adore one. Ralph was nothing if not critical; and though she would certainly, other things being equal, have been as glad to marry to please him as to please any one, it would be absurd to regard as important that her choice should square with his views. What were his views after all? He had pretended to believe she had better have married Lord Warburton; but this was only because she had refused that excellent man. If she had accepted him Ralph would certainly have taken another tone; he always took the opposite. You could criticise any marriage; it was the essence of a marriage to be open to criticism. How well she herself, should she only give her mind to it, might criticise this union of her own! She had other employment, however, and Ralph was welcome to relieve her of the care. Isabel was prepared to be most patient and most indulgent. He must have seen that, and this made it the more odd he should say nothing. After three days had elapsed without his speaking our young woman wearied of waiting; dislike it as he would, he might at least go through the form. We, who know more about poor Ralph than his cousin, may easily believe that during the hours that followed his arrival at Palazzo Crescentini he had privately gone through many forms. His mother had literally greeted him with the great news, which had been even more sensibly chilling than Mrs. Touchett's maternal kiss. Ralph was shocked and humiliated; his calculations had been false and the person in the world in whom he was most interested was lost. He drifted about the house like a rudderless vessel in a rocky stream, or sat in the garden of the palace on a great cane chair, his long legs extended, his head thrown back and his hat pulled over his eyes. He felt cold about the heart; he had never liked anything less. What could he do, what could he say? If the girl were irreclaimable could he pretend to like it? To attempt to reclaim her was permissible only if the attempt should succeed. To try to persuade her of anything sordid or sinister in the man to whose deep art she had succumbed would be decently discreet only in the event of her being persuaded. Otherwise he should simply have damned himself. It cost him an equal effort to speak his thought and to dissemble; he could neither assent with sincerity nor protest with hope. Meanwhile he knew--or rather he supposed--that the affianced pair were daily renewing their mutual vows. Osmond at this moment showed himself little at Palazzo Crescentini; but Isabel met him every day elsewhere, as she was free to do after their engagement had been made public. She had taken a carriage by the month, so as not to be indebted to her aunt for the means of pursuing a course of which Mrs. Touchett disapproved, and she drove in the morning to the Cascine. This suburban wilderness, during the early hours, was void of all intruders, and our young lady, joined by her lover in its quietest part, strolled with him a while through the grey Italian shade and listened to the nightingales.

Isabel breaks the news of her engagement to Mrs. Touchett. Mrs. Touchett though, already seems to know. She blames Madame Merle, telling Isabel she now realizes that Merle only pretended to her that she would interfere if there were a danger that Isabel would marry Osmond. She thinks Merle has done something grand for Osmond, in giving him Isabel. Isabel does not think Merle had anything to do with her engagement. Mrs. Touchett thinks that Osmond has no name, no importance, and no fortune, so she has no idea why Isabel would marry him. Isabel hesitantly suggests that she should like to give Osmond some money. Mrs. Touchett wonders if Isabel marries Osmond for charity, and Isabel responds that she does not have to explain herself to Mrs. Touchett

summary

Her fit of weeping, however, was soon smothered, and the signs of it had vanished when, an hour later, she broke the news to her aunt. I use this expression because she had been sure Mrs. Touchett would not be pleased; Isabel had only waited to tell her till she had seen Mr. Goodwood. She had an odd impression that it would not be honourable to make the fact public before she should have heard what Mr. Goodwood would say about it. He had said rather less than she expected, and she now had a somewhat angry sense of having lost time. But she would lose no more; she waited till Mrs. Touchett came into the drawing-room before the mid-day breakfast, and then she began. "Aunt Lydia, I've something to tell you." Mrs. Touchett gave a little jump and looked at her almost fiercely. "You needn't tell me; I know what it is." "I don't know how you know." "The same way that I know when the window's open--by feeling a draught. You're going to marry that man." "What man do you mean?" Isabel enquired with great dignity. "Madame Merle's friend--Mr. Osmond." "I don't know why you call him Madame Merle's friend. Is that the principal thing he's known by?" "If he's not her friend he ought to be--after what she has done for him!" cried Mrs. Touchett. "I shouldn't have expected it of her; I'm disappointed." "If you mean that Madame Merle has had anything to do with my engagement you're greatly mistaken," Isabel declared with a sort of ardent coldness. "You mean that your attractions were sufficient, without the gentleman's having had to be lashed up? You're quite right. They're immense, your attractions, and he would never have presumed to think of you if she hadn't put him up to it. He has a very good opinion of himself, but he was not a man to take trouble. Madame Merle took the trouble for him." "He has taken a great deal for himself!" cried Isabel with a voluntary laugh. Mrs. Touchett gave a sharp nod. "I think he must, after all, to have made you like him so much." "I thought he even pleased YOU." "He did, at one time; and that's why I'm angry with him." "Be angry with me, not with him," said the girl. "Oh, I'm always angry with you; that's no satisfaction! Was it for this that you refused Lord Warburton?" "Please don't go back to that. Why shouldn't I like Mr. Osmond, since others have done so?" "Others, at their wildest moments, never wanted to marry him. There's nothing OF him," Mrs. Touchett explained. "Then he can't hurt me," said Isabel. "Do you think you're going to be happy? No one's happy, in such doings, you should know." "I shall set the fashion then. What does one marry for?" "What YOU will marry for, heaven only knows. People usually marry as they go into partnership--to set up a house. But in your partnership you'll bring everything." "Is it that Mr. Osmond isn't rich? Is that what you're talking about?" Isabel asked. "He has no money; he has no name; he has no importance. I value such things and I have the courage to say it; I think they're very precious. Many other people think the same, and they show it. But they give some other reason." Isabel hesitated a little. "I think I value everything that's valuable. I care very much for money, and that's why I wish Mr. Osmond to have a little." "Give it to him then; but marry some one else." "His name's good enough for me," the girl went on. "It's a very pretty name. Have I such a fine one myself?" "All the more reason you should improve on it. There are only a dozen American names. Do you marry him out of charity?" "It was my duty to tell you, Aunt Lydia, but I don't think it's my duty to explain to you. Even if it were I shouldn't be able. So please don't remonstrate; in talking about it you have me at a disadvantage. I can't talk about it." "I don't remonstrate, I simply answer you: I must give some sign of intelligence. I saw it coming, and I said nothing. I never meddle." "You never do, and I'm greatly obliged to you. You've been very considerate." "It was not considerate--it was convenient," said Mrs. Touchett. "But I shall talk to Madame Merle." "I don't see why you keep bringing her in. She has been a very good friend to me." "Possibly; but she has been a poor one to me." "What has she done to you?" "She has deceived me. She had as good as promised me to prevent your engagement." "She couldn't have prevented it." "She can do anything; that's what I've always liked her for. I knew she could play any part; but I understood that she played them one by one. I didn't understand that she would play two at the same time." "I don't know what part she may have played to you," Isabel said; "that's between yourselves. To me she has been honest and kind and devoted." "Devoted, of course; she wished you to marry her candidate. She told me she was watching you only in order to interpose." "She said that to please you," the girl answered; conscious, however, of the inadequacy of the explanation. "To please me by deceiving me? She knows me better. Am I pleased to-day?" "I don't think you're ever much pleased," Isabel was obliged to reply. "If Madame Merle knew you would learn the truth what had she to gain by insincerity?" "She gained time, as you see. While I waited for her to interfere you were marching away, and she was really beating the drum." "That's very well. But by your own admission you saw I was marching, and even if she had given the alarm you wouldn't have tried to stop me." "No, but some one else would." "Whom do you mean?" Isabel asked, looking very hard at her aunt. Mrs. Touchett's little bright eyes, active as they usually were, sustained her gaze rather than returned it. "Would you have listened to Ralph?" "Not if he had abused Mr. Osmond." "Ralph doesn't abuse people; you know that perfectly. He cares very much for you." "I know he does," said Isabel; "and I shall feel the value of it now, for he knows that whatever I do I do with reason." "He never believed you would do this. I told him you were capable of it, and he argued the other way." "He did it for the sake of argument," the girl smiled. "You don't accuse him of having deceived you; why should you accuse Madame Merle?" "He never pretended he'd prevent it." "I'm glad of that!" cried Isabel gaily. "I wish very much," she presently added, "that when he comes you'd tell him first of my engagement." "Of course I'll mention it," said Mrs. Touchett. "I shall say nothing more to you about it, but I give you notice I shall talk to others." "That's as you please. I only meant that it's rather better the announcement should come from you than from me." "I quite agree with you; it's much more proper!" And on this the aunt and the niece went to breakfast, where Mrs. Touchett, as good as her word, made no allusion to Gilbert Osmond. After an interval of silence, however, she asked her companion from whom she had received a visit an hour before. "From an old friend--an American gentleman," Isabel said with a colour in her cheek. "An American gentleman of course. It's only an American gentleman who calls at ten o'clock in the morning." "It was half-past ten; he was in a great hurry; he goes away this evening." "Couldn't he have come yesterday, at the usual time?" "He only arrived last night." "He spends but twenty-four hours in Florence?" Mrs. Touchett cried. "He's an American gentleman truly." "He is indeed," said Isabel, thinking with perverse admiration of what Caspar Goodwood had done for her. Two days afterward Ralph arrived; but though Isabel was sure that Mrs. Touchett had lost no time in imparting to him the great fact, he showed at first no open knowledge of it. Their prompted talk was naturally of his health; Isabel had many questions to ask about Corfu. She had been shocked by his appearance when he came into the room; she had forgotten how ill he looked. In spite of Corfu he looked very ill to-day, and she wondered if he were really worse or if she were simply disaccustomed to living with an invalid. Poor Ralph made no nearer approach to conventional beauty as he advanced in life, and the now apparently complete loss of his health had done little to mitigate the natural oddity of his person. Blighted and battered, but still responsive and still ironic, his face was like a lighted lantern patched with paper and unsteadily held; his thin whisker languished upon a lean cheek; the exorbitant curve of his nose defined itself more sharply. Lean he was altogether, lean and long and loose-jointed; an accidental cohesion of relaxed angles. His brown velvet jacket had become perennial; his hands had fixed themselves in his pockets; he shambled and stumbled and shuffled in a manner that denoted great physical helplessness. It was perhaps this whimsical gait that helped to mark his character more than ever as that of the humorous invalid--the invalid for whom even his own disabilities are part of the general joke. They might well indeed with Ralph have been the chief cause of the want of seriousness marking his view of a world in which the reason for his own continued presence was past finding out. Isabel had grown fond of his ugliness; his awkwardness had become dear to her. They had been sweetened by association; they struck her as the very terms on which it had been given him to be charming. He was so charming that her sense of his being ill had hitherto had a sort of comfort in it; the state of his health had seemed not a limitation, but a kind of intellectual advantage; it absolved him from all professional and official emotions and left him the luxury of being exclusively personal. The personality so resulting was delightful; he had remained proof against the staleness of disease; he had had to consent to be deplorably ill, yet had somehow escaped being formally sick. Such had been the girl's impression of her cousin; and when she had pitied him it was only on reflection. As she reflected a good deal she had allowed him a certain amount of compassion; but she always had a dread of wasting that essence--a precious article, worth more to the giver than to any one else. Now, however, it took no great sensibility to feel that poor Ralph's tenure of life was less elastic than it should be. He was a bright, free, generous spirit, he had all the illumination of wisdom and none of its pedantry, and yet he was distressfully dying. Isabel noted afresh that life was certainly hard for some people, and she felt a delicate glow of shame as she thought how easy it now promised to become for herself. She was prepared to learn that Ralph was not pleased with her engagement; but she was not prepared, in spite of her affection for him, to let this fact spoil the situation. She was not even prepared, or so she thought, to resent his want of sympathy; for it would be his privilege--it would be indeed his natural line--to find fault with any step she might take toward marriage. One's cousin always pretended to hate one's husband; that was traditional, classical; it was a part of one's cousin's always pretending to adore one. Ralph was nothing if not critical; and though she would certainly, other things being equal, have been as glad to marry to please him as to please any one, it would be absurd to regard as important that her choice should square with his views. What were his views after all? He had pretended to believe she had better have married Lord Warburton; but this was only because she had refused that excellent man. If she had accepted him Ralph would certainly have taken another tone; he always took the opposite. You could criticise any marriage; it was the essence of a marriage to be open to criticism. How well she herself, should she only give her mind to it, might criticise this union of her own! She had other employment, however, and Ralph was welcome to relieve her of the care. Isabel was prepared to be most patient and most indulgent. He must have seen that, and this made it the more odd he should say nothing. After three days had elapsed without his speaking our young woman wearied of waiting; dislike it as he would, he might at least go through the form. We, who know more about poor Ralph than his cousin, may easily believe that during the hours that followed his arrival at Palazzo Crescentini he had privately gone through many forms. His mother had literally greeted him with the great news, which had been even more sensibly chilling than Mrs. Touchett's maternal kiss. Ralph was shocked and humiliated; his calculations had been false and the person in the world in whom he was most interested was lost. He drifted about the house like a rudderless vessel in a rocky stream, or sat in the garden of the palace on a great cane chair, his long legs extended, his head thrown back and his hat pulled over his eyes. He felt cold about the heart; he had never liked anything less. What could he do, what could he say? If the girl were irreclaimable could he pretend to like it? To attempt to reclaim her was permissible only if the attempt should succeed. To try to persuade her of anything sordid or sinister in the man to whose deep art she had succumbed would be decently discreet only in the event of her being persuaded. Otherwise he should simply have damned himself. It cost him an equal effort to speak his thought and to dissemble; he could neither assent with sincerity nor protest with hope. Meanwhile he knew--or rather he supposed--that the affianced pair were daily renewing their mutual vows. Osmond at this moment showed himself little at Palazzo Crescentini; but Isabel met him every day elsewhere, as she was free to do after their engagement had been made public. She had taken a carriage by the month, so as not to be indebted to her aunt for the means of pursuing a course of which Mrs. Touchett disapproved, and she drove in the morning to the Cascine. This suburban wilderness, during the early hours, was void of all intruders, and our young lady, joined by her lover in its quietest part, strolled with him a while through the grey Italian shade and listened to the nightingales.

. It is notable too, that this reminiscence of Isabel's travels is contextualized in her mind's eye -- she is awaiting Caspar Goodwood, and thinking about how much she herself has changed since she last saw him. This is a common technique that Henry James employs: the narrator lends some more concrete words for the very vague reminiscences of a character, allowing that character to reflect upon their own experiences, but also allowing the reader to reap the benefit of a more objective, summary view of certain events. "If her thoughts just now had inclined themselves to retrospect, instead of fluttering their wings nervously about the present, they would have evoked a multitude of interesting pictures," the narrator tells us. This again is called "hypothetical discourse" as coined by scholar Arlene Young . Isabel's reaction in Chapter 32 to Caspar Goodwood is curiously physical and emotional. Is she really as disinterested in him as she claims to be? The novel itself deals very little with strong, physical outbursts of emotions: Isabel's scenes with Caspar Goodwood are an exception to the rule. One theory is that Isabel is sexually attracted to Goodwood, but her Victorian prudery makes her repress this idea; she wants to escape her own sexuality in his presence. It is important to notice the reactions of others to Isabel's engagement, and how Isabel's resolution becomes more concrete in the face of their opposition. In her conversation with Mrs. Touchett, she does not quite know why she wants to marry Osmond, and she can barely articulate it. When she discusses her motivations with Ralph, her own conviction becomes more concrete. "His opposition had made her own conception of her conduct clearer to her," the narrator tells us. Ralph says that he had thought of the great "idea" she would actualize in the world only in the "negative" -- but we should notice that her marrying Osmond is actually an articulation of a negative idea -- of an idea that exists only as one in opposition to others' opinions. In other words, she feels like she freely chooses her marriage to Osmond mostly because no one in her circle seems to approve of the engagement. So the narrator tells us, the disapproval of others for Isabel "served mainly to throw into higher relief, in every way so honourable, that she married to please herself." Osmond's narcissism becomes apparent in Chapter 35. It is notable how he thinks of Isabel as a fine object, a present made to him by Madame Merle, rather than seeming to really be in love with her. Again, there is a comparison between a person and a commodity: he thinks of Isabel as a "silver plate." Consider the coldness of this extended metaphor - he continues to think of how he will heap fruits onto this plate. His conception of a good relationship is that the other person reflects one's own thoughts back to oneself -- it seems that he will give very little room for Isabel to have ideas of her own. He has the attitude of a connoisseur or collector to a commodity of value. It does not quite fit a more romantic conception of love - of loving Isabel for herself.

analysis

One morning, on her return from her drive, some half-hour before luncheon, she quitted her vehicle in the court of the palace and, instead of ascending the great staircase, crossed the court, passed beneath another archway and entered the garden. A sweeter spot at this moment could not have been imagined. The stillness of noontide hung over it, and the warm shade, enclosed and still, made bowers like spacious caves. Ralph was sitting there in the clear gloom, at the base of a statue of Terpsichore--a dancing nymph with taper fingers and inflated draperies in the manner of Bernini; the extreme relaxation of his attitude suggested at first to Isabel that he was asleep. Her light footstep on the grass had not roused him, and before turning away she stood for a moment looking at him. During this instant he opened his eyes; upon which she sat down on a rustic chair that matched with his own. Though in her irritation she had accused him of indifference she was not blind to the fact that he had visibly had something to brood over. But she had explained his air of absence partly by the languor of his increased weakness, partly by worries connected with the property inherited from his father--the fruit of eccentric arrangements of which Mrs. Touchett disapproved and which, as she had told Isabel, now encountered opposition from the other partners in the bank. He ought to have gone to England, his mother said, instead of coming to Florence; he had not been there for months, and took no more interest in the bank than in the state of Patagonia. "I'm sorry I waked you," Isabel said; "you look too tired." "I feel too tired. But I was not asleep. I was thinking of you." "Are you tired of that?" "Very much so. It leads to nothing. The road's long and I never arrive." "What do you wish to arrive at?" she put to him, closing her parasol. "At the point of expressing to myself properly what I think of your engagement." "Don't think too much of it," she lightly returned. "Do you mean that it's none of my business?" "Beyond a certain point, yes." "That's the point I want to fix. I had an idea you may have found me wanting in good manners. I've never congratulated you." "Of course I've noticed that. I wondered why you were silent." "There have been a good many reasons. I'll tell you now," Ralph said. He pulled off his hat and laid it on the ground; then he sat looking at her. He leaned back under the protection of Bernini, his head against his marble pedestal, his arms dropped on either side of him, his hands laid upon the rests of his wide chair. He looked awkward, uncomfortable; he hesitated long. Isabel said nothing; when people were embarrassed she was usually sorry for them, but she was determined not to help Ralph to utter a word that should not be to the honour of her high decision. "I think I've hardly got over my surprise," he went on at last. "You were the last person I expected to see caught." "I don't know why you call it caught." "Because you're going to be put into a cage." "If I like my cage, that needn't trouble you," she answered. "That's what I wonder at; that's what I've been thinking of." "If you've been thinking you may imagine how I've thought! I'm satisfied that I'm doing well." "You must have changed immensely. A year ago you valued your liberty beyond everything. You wanted only to see life." "I've seen it," said Isabel. "It doesn't look to me now, I admit, such an inviting expanse." "I don't pretend it is; only I had an idea that you took a genial view of it and wanted to survey the whole field." "I've seen that one can't do anything so general. One must choose a corner and cultivate that." "That's what I think. And one must choose as good a corner as possible. I had no idea, all winter, while I read your delightful letters, that you were choosing. You said nothing about it, and your silence put me off my guard." "It was not a matter I was likely to write to you about. Besides, I knew nothing of the future. It has all come lately. If you had been on your guard, however," Isabel asked, "what would you have done?" "I should have said 'Wait a little longer.'" "Wait for what?" "Well, for a little more light," said Ralph with rather an absurd smile, while his hands found their way into his pockets. "Where should my light have come from? From you?" "I might have struck a spark or two." Isabel had drawn off her gloves; she smoothed them out as they lay upon her knee. The mildness of this movement was accidental, for her expression was not conciliatory. "You're beating about the bush, Ralph. You wish to say you don't like Mr. Osmond, and yet you're afraid." "Willing to wound and yet afraid to strike? I'm willing to wound HIM, yes--but not to wound you. I'm afraid of you, not of him. If you marry him it won't be a fortunate way for me to have spoken." "IF I marry him! Have you had any expectation of dissuading me?" "Of course that seems to you too fatuous." "No," said Isabel after a little; "it seems to me too touching." "That's the same thing. It makes me so ridiculous that you pity me." She stroked out her long gloves again. "I know you've a great affection for me. I can't get rid of that." "For heaven's sake don't try. Keep that well in sight. It will convince you how intensely I want you to do well." "And how little you trust me!" There was a moment's silence; the warm noontide seemed to listen. "I trust you, but I don't trust him," said Ralph. She raised her eyes and gave him a wide, deep look. "You've said it now, and I'm glad you've made it so clear. But you'll suffer by it." "Not if you're just." "I'm very just," said Isabel. "What better proof of it can there be than that I'm not angry with you? I don't know what's the matter with me, but I'm not. I was when you began, but it has passed away. Perhaps I ought to be angry, but Mr. Osmond wouldn't think so. He wants me to know everything; that's what I like him for. You've nothing to gain, I know that. I've never been so nice to you, as a girl, that you should have much reason for wishing me to remain one. You give very good advice; you've often done so. No, I'm very quiet; I've always believed in your wisdom," she went on, boasting of her quietness, yet speaking with a kind of contained exaltation. It was her passionate desire to be just; it touched Ralph to the heart, affected him like a caress from a creature he had injured. He wished to interrupt, to reassure her; for a moment he was absurdly inconsistent; he would have retracted what he had said. But she gave him no chance; she went on, having caught a glimpse, as she thought, of the heroic line and desiring to advance in that direction. "I see you've some special idea; I should like very much to hear it. I'm sure it's disinterested; I feel that. It seems a strange thing to argue about, and of course I ought to tell you definitely that if you expect to dissuade me you may give it up. You'll not move me an inch; it's too late. As you say, I'm caught. Certainly it won't be pleasant for you to remember this, but your pain will be in your own thoughts. I shall never reproach you." "I don't think you ever will," said Ralph. "It's not in the least the sort of marriage I thought you'd make." "What sort of marriage was that, pray?" "Well, I can hardly say. I hadn't exactly a positive view of it, but I had a negative. I didn't think you'd decide for--well, for that type." "What's the matter with Mr. Osmond's type, if it be one? His being so independent, so individual, is what I most see in him," the girl declared. "What do you know against him? You know him scarcely at all." "Yes," Ralph said, "I know him very little, and I confess I haven't facts and items to prove him a villain. But all the same I can't help feeling that you're running a grave risk." "Marriage is always a grave risk, and his risk's as grave as mine." "That's his affair! If he's afraid, let him back out. I wish to God he would." Isabel reclined in her chair, folding her arms and gazing a while at her cousin. "I don't think I understand you," she said at last coldly. "I don't know what you're talking about." "I believed you'd marry a man of more importance." 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!" Ralph blushed as well; his attitude embarrassed him. Physically speaking he proceeded to change it; he straightened himself, then leaned forward, resting a hand on each knee. He fixed his eyes on the ground; he had an air of the most respectful deliberation. "I'll tell you in a moment what I mean," he presently said. He felt agitated, intensely eager; now that he had opened the discussion he wished to discharge his mind. But he wished also to be superlatively gentle. Isabel waited a little--then she went on with majesty. "In everything that makes one care for people Mr. Osmond is pre-eminent. There may be nobler natures, but I've never had the pleasure of meeting one. Mr. Osmond's is the finest I know; he's good enough for me, and interesting enough, and clever enough. I'm far more struck with what he has and what he represents than with what he may lack." "I had treated myself to a charming vision of your future," Ralph observed without answering this; "I had amused myself with planning out a high destiny for you. There was to be nothing of this sort in it. You were not to come down so easily or so soon." "Come down, you say?" "Well, that renders my sense of what has happened to you. You seemed to me to be soaring far up in the blue--to be, sailing in the bright light, over the heads of men. Suddenly some one tosses up a faded rosebud--a missile that should never have reached you--and straight you drop to the ground. It hurts me," said Ralph audaciously, "hurts me as if I had fallen myself!" The look of pain and bewilderment deepened in his companion's face. "I don't understand you in the least," she repeated. "You say you amused yourself with a project for my career--I don't understand that. Don't amuse yourself too much, or I shall think you're doing it at my expense." Ralph shook his head. "I'm not afraid of your not believing that I've had great ideas for you." "What do you mean by my soaring and sailing?" she pursued. "I've never moved on a higher plane than I'm moving on now. There's nothing higher for a girl than to marry a--a person she likes," said poor Isabel, wandering into the didactic. "It's your liking the person we speak of that I venture to criticise, my dear cousin. I should have said that the man for you would have been a more active, larger, freer sort of nature." Ralph hesitated, then added: "I can't get over the sense that Osmond is somehow--well, small." He had uttered the last word with no great assurance; he was afraid she would flash out again. But to his surprise she was quiet; she had the air of considering. "Small?" She made it sound immense. "I think he's narrow, selfish. He takes himself so seriously!" "He has a great respect for himself; I don't blame him for that," said Isabel. "It makes one more sure to respect others." Ralph for a moment felt almost reassured by her reasonable tone. "Yes, but everything is relative; one ought to feel one's relation to things--to others. I don't think Mr. Osmond does that." "I've chiefly to do with his relation to me. In that he's excellent." "He's the incarnation of taste," Ralph went on, thinking hard how he could best express Gilbert Osmond's sinister attributes without putting himself in the wrong by seeming to describe him coarsely. He wished to describe him impersonally, scientifically. "He judges and measures, approves and condemns, altogether by that." "It's a happy thing then that his taste should be exquisite." "It's exquisite, indeed, since it has led him to select you as his bride. But have you ever seen such a taste--a really exquisite one--ruffled?" "I hope it may never be my fortune to fail to gratify my husband's." At these words a sudden passion leaped to Ralph's lips. "Ah, that's wilful, that's unworthy of you! You were not meant to be measured in that way--you were meant for something better than to keep guard over the sensibilities of a sterile dilettante!" Isabel rose quickly and he did the same, so that they stood for a moment looking at each other as if he had flung down a defiance or an insult. But "You go too far," she simply breathed. "I've said what I had on my mind--and I've said it because I love you!" Isabel turned pale: was he too on that tiresome list? She had a sudden wish to strike him off. "Ah then, you're not disinterested!" "I love you, but I love without hope," said Ralph quickly, forcing a smile and feeling that in that last declaration he had expressed more than he intended. Isabel moved away and stood looking into the sunny stillness of the garden; but after a little she turned back to him. "I'm afraid your talk then is the wildness of despair! I don't understand it--but it doesn't matter. I'm not arguing with you; it's impossible I should; I've only tried to listen to you. I'm much obliged to you for attempting to explain," she said gently, as if the anger with which she had just sprung up had already subsided. "It's very good of you to try to warn me, if you're really alarmed; but I won't promise to think of what you've said: I shall forget it as soon as possible. Try and forget it yourself; you've done your duty, and no man can do more. I can't explain to you what I feel, what I believe, and I wouldn't if I could." She paused a moment and then went on with an inconsequence that Ralph observed even in the midst of his eagerness to discover some symptom of concession. "I can't enter into your idea of Mr. Osmond; I can't do it justice, because I see him in quite another way. He's not important--no, he's not important; he's a man to whom importance is supremely indifferent. If that's what you mean when you call him 'small,' then he's as small as you please. I call that large--it's the largest thing I know. I won't pretend to argue with you about a person I'm going to marry," Isabel repeated. "I'm not in the least concerned to defend Mr. Osmond; he's not so weak as to need my defence. I should think it would seem strange even to yourself that I should talk of him so quietly and coldly, as if he were any one else. I wouldn't talk of him at all to any one but you; and you, after what you've said--I may just answer you once for all. Pray, would you wish me to make a mercenary marriage--what they call a marriage of ambition? I've only one ambition--to be free to follow out a good feeling. I had others once, but they've passed away. Do you complain of Mr. Osmond because he's not rich? That's just what I like him for. I've fortunately money enough; I've never felt so thankful for it as to-day. There have been moments when I should like to go and kneel down by your father's grave: he did perhaps a better thing than he knew when he put it into my power to marry a poor man--a man who has borne his poverty with such dignity, with such indifference. Mr. Osmond has never scrambled nor struggled--he has cared for no worldly prize. If that's to be narrow, if that's to be selfish, then it's very well. I'm not frightened by such words, I'm not even displeased; I'm only sorry that you should make a mistake. Others might have done so, but I'm surprised that you should. You might know a gentleman when you see one--you might know a fine mind. Mr. Osmond makes no mistakes! He knows everything, he understands everything, he has the kindest, gentlest, highest spirit. You've got hold of some false idea. It's a pity, but I can't help it; it regards you more than me." Isabel paused a moment, looking at her cousin with an eye illumined by a sentiment which contradicted the careful calmness of her manner--a mingled sentiment, to which the angry pain excited by his words and the wounded pride of having needed to justify a choice of which she felt only the nobleness and purity, equally contributed. Though she paused Ralph said nothing; he saw she had more to say. She was grand, but she was highly solicitous; she was indifferent, but she was all in a passion. "What sort of a person should you have liked me to marry?" she asked suddenly. "You talk about one's soaring and sailing, but if one marries at all one touches the earth. One has human feelings and needs, one has a heart in one's bosom, and one must marry a particular individual. Your mother has never forgiven me for not having come to a better understanding with Lord Warburton, and she's horrified at my contenting myself with a person who has none of his great advantages--no property, no title, no honours, no houses, nor lands, nor position, nor reputation, nor brilliant belongings of any sort. It's the total absence of all these things that pleases me. Mr. Osmond's simply a very lonely, a very cultivated and a very honest man--he's not a prodigious proprietor." Ralph had listened with great attention, as if everything she said merited deep consideration; but in truth he was only half thinking of the things she said, he was for the rest simply accommodating himself to the weight of his total impression--the impression of her ardent good faith. She was wrong, but she believed; she was deluded, but she was dismally consistent. It was wonderfully characteristic of her that, having invented a fine theory, about Gilbert Osmond, she loved him not for what he really possessed, but for his very poverties dressed out as honours. Ralph remembered what he had said to his father about wishing to put it into her power to meet the requirements of her imagination. He had done so, and the girl had taken full advantage of the luxury. Poor Ralph felt sick; he felt ashamed. Isabel had uttered her last words with a low solemnity of conviction which virtually terminated the discussion, and she closed it formally by turning away and walking back to the house. Ralph walked beside her, and they passed into the court together and reached the big staircase. Here he stopped and Isabel paused, turning on him a face of elation--absolutely and perversely of gratitude. His opposition had made her own conception of her conduct clearer to her. "Shall you not come up to breakfast?" she asked. "No; I want no breakfast; I'm not hungry." "You ought to eat," said the girl; "you live on air." "I do, very much, and I shall go back into the garden and take another mouthful. I came thus far simply to say this. I told you last year that if you were to get into trouble I should feel terribly sold. That's how I feel to-day." "Do you think I'm in trouble?" "One's in trouble when one's in error." "Very well," said Isabel; "I shall never complain of my trouble to you!" And she moved up the staircase. Ralph, standing there with his hands in his pockets, followed her with his eyes; then the lurking chill of the high-walled court struck him and made him shiver, so that he returned to the garden to breakfast on the Florentine sunshine.

Isabel and Mrs. Touchett agree that Mrs. Touchett will be the one to announce the engagement to the others. Ralph arrives two days after this discussion with Mrs. Touchett. Isabel knows he has been informed of the engagement, and prepares herself to meet with his resistance. But he is silent on the subject for several days, and she can only be patient and expectant. The narrator informs us though that Ralph indeed was displeased with the engagement, and he feels humiliated. He had miscalculated what Isabel would do. Isabel happens upon Ralph in the garden. He seems to be sleeping - but when Isabel approaches him, he says he is just thinking of her. They finally broach the subject of her engagement. He tells her that he can only say what he thinks of Osmond if she ends up not going through with the engagement, because otherwise he will have spoken ill of her husband to be. This is offensive already to her, but she says she is not angry because she knows his opinion is disinterested. He says she has been trapped, and that she will be put into a cage. She asks what the harm is, if she likes her cage. He finally admits to thinking that Osmond is small. She considers this - the word seems large to her. Ralph says that he thinks Osmond has taste, and only taste - he does nothing, he only judges. He does not really feel his relation to others, according to Ralph. He of course has no proof that Osmond is a sinister character, but he nevertheless has guessed that he is a selfish person. He had thought of Isabel as a soaring creature, high up in the air, and he feels that she has fallen. Isabel does not know what she means about being high in the sky. Ralph accidentally lets slip that he loves Isabel, and Isabel is annoyed - is he too on that tiresome list. She wishes to strike him off that list. Ralph quickly realizes his mistake and tells her he is still disinterested in the matter because he loves without hope. Isabel says that she likes what Osmond has and what he represents. She believes that Osmond is a man to whom being important is not a big deal - and she finds that large. Would Ralph prefer it, she asks, if she made a marriage of ambition, so that she herself could become more important for being with someone important. She likes it that Mr. Osmond is not rich. She thinks Ralph is making a mistake in his judgment of Mr. Osmond's character. Osmond wants to teach her about the world, and she believes he knows everything, understands everything. Ralph realizes how ardently Isabel believes what she says -- he finds her "dismally consistent". He realizes that she "loved him not for what he possessed, but for his very poverties dressed out as honours. Ralph felt sick, realizing that he had wanted Isabel to be able to meet her imagination with the financial means to do so - he realizes that his act of beneficence has resulted in her ability to do so by Isabel feels more resolved by the end of their conversation, and Ralph realizes he can do nothing. He says that he feels bad, because she is in trouble. Isabel says she will never complain to him if she is in trouble

summary

One morning, on her return from her drive, some half-hour before luncheon, she quitted her vehicle in the court of the palace and, instead of ascending the great staircase, crossed the court, passed beneath another archway and entered the garden. A sweeter spot at this moment could not have been imagined. The stillness of noontide hung over it, and the warm shade, enclosed and still, made bowers like spacious caves. Ralph was sitting there in the clear gloom, at the base of a statue of Terpsichore--a dancing nymph with taper fingers and inflated draperies in the manner of Bernini; the extreme relaxation of his attitude suggested at first to Isabel that he was asleep. Her light footstep on the grass had not roused him, and before turning away she stood for a moment looking at him. During this instant he opened his eyes; upon which she sat down on a rustic chair that matched with his own. Though in her irritation she had accused him of indifference she was not blind to the fact that he had visibly had something to brood over. But she had explained his air of absence partly by the languor of his increased weakness, partly by worries connected with the property inherited from his father--the fruit of eccentric arrangements of which Mrs. Touchett disapproved and which, as she had told Isabel, now encountered opposition from the other partners in the bank. He ought to have gone to England, his mother said, instead of coming to Florence; he had not been there for months, and took no more interest in the bank than in the state of Patagonia. "I'm sorry I waked you," Isabel said; "you look too tired." "I feel too tired. But I was not asleep. I was thinking of you." "Are you tired of that?" "Very much so. It leads to nothing. The road's long and I never arrive." "What do you wish to arrive at?" she put to him, closing her parasol. "At the point of expressing to myself properly what I think of your engagement." "Don't think too much of it," she lightly returned. "Do you mean that it's none of my business?" "Beyond a certain point, yes." "That's the point I want to fix. I had an idea you may have found me wanting in good manners. I've never congratulated you." "Of course I've noticed that. I wondered why you were silent." "There have been a good many reasons. I'll tell you now," Ralph said. He pulled off his hat and laid it on the ground; then he sat looking at her. He leaned back under the protection of Bernini, his head against his marble pedestal, his arms dropped on either side of him, his hands laid upon the rests of his wide chair. He looked awkward, uncomfortable; he hesitated long. Isabel said nothing; when people were embarrassed she was usually sorry for them, but she was determined not to help Ralph to utter a word that should not be to the honour of her high decision. "I think I've hardly got over my surprise," he went on at last. "You were the last person I expected to see caught." "I don't know why you call it caught." "Because you're going to be put into a cage." "If I like my cage, that needn't trouble you," she answered. "That's what I wonder at; that's what I've been thinking of." "If you've been thinking you may imagine how I've thought! I'm satisfied that I'm doing well." "You must have changed immensely. A year ago you valued your liberty beyond everything. You wanted only to see life." "I've seen it," said Isabel. "It doesn't look to me now, I admit, such an inviting expanse." "I don't pretend it is; only I had an idea that you took a genial view of it and wanted to survey the whole field." "I've seen that one can't do anything so general. One must choose a corner and cultivate that." "That's what I think. And one must choose as good a corner as possible. I had no idea, all winter, while I read your delightful letters, that you were choosing. You said nothing about it, and your silence put me off my guard." "It was not a matter I was likely to write to you about. Besides, I knew nothing of the future. It has all come lately. If you had been on your guard, however," Isabel asked, "what would you have done?" "I should have said 'Wait a little longer.'" "Wait for what?" "Well, for a little more light," said Ralph with rather an absurd smile, while his hands found their way into his pockets. "Where should my light have come from? From you?" "I might have struck a spark or two." Isabel had drawn off her gloves; she smoothed them out as they lay upon her knee. The mildness of this movement was accidental, for her expression was not conciliatory. "You're beating about the bush, Ralph. You wish to say you don't like Mr. Osmond, and yet you're afraid." "Willing to wound and yet afraid to strike? I'm willing to wound HIM, yes--but not to wound you. I'm afraid of you, not of him. If you marry him it won't be a fortunate way for me to have spoken." "IF I marry him! Have you had any expectation of dissuading me?" "Of course that seems to you too fatuous." "No," said Isabel after a little; "it seems to me too touching." "That's the same thing. It makes me so ridiculous that you pity me." She stroked out her long gloves again. "I know you've a great affection for me. I can't get rid of that." "For heaven's sake don't try. Keep that well in sight. It will convince you how intensely I want you to do well." "And how little you trust me!" There was a moment's silence; the warm noontide seemed to listen. "I trust you, but I don't trust him," said Ralph. She raised her eyes and gave him a wide, deep look. "You've said it now, and I'm glad you've made it so clear. But you'll suffer by it." "Not if you're just." "I'm very just," said Isabel. "What better proof of it can there be than that I'm not angry with you? I don't know what's the matter with me, but I'm not. I was when you began, but it has passed away. Perhaps I ought to be angry, but Mr. Osmond wouldn't think so. He wants me to know everything; that's what I like him for. You've nothing to gain, I know that. I've never been so nice to you, as a girl, that you should have much reason for wishing me to remain one. You give very good advice; you've often done so. No, I'm very quiet; I've always believed in your wisdom," she went on, boasting of her quietness, yet speaking with a kind of contained exaltation. It was her passionate desire to be just; it touched Ralph to the heart, affected him like a caress from a creature he had injured. He wished to interrupt, to reassure her; for a moment he was absurdly inconsistent; he would have retracted what he had said. But she gave him no chance; she went on, having caught a glimpse, as she thought, of the heroic line and desiring to advance in that direction. "I see you've some special idea; I should like very much to hear it. I'm sure it's disinterested; I feel that. It seems a strange thing to argue about, and of course I ought to tell you definitely that if you expect to dissuade me you may give it up. You'll not move me an inch; it's too late. As you say, I'm caught. Certainly it won't be pleasant for you to remember this, but your pain will be in your own thoughts. I shall never reproach you." "I don't think you ever will," said Ralph. "It's not in the least the sort of marriage I thought you'd make." "What sort of marriage was that, pray?" "Well, I can hardly say. I hadn't exactly a positive view of it, but I had a negative. I didn't think you'd decide for--well, for that type." "What's the matter with Mr. Osmond's type, if it be one? His being so independent, so individual, is what I most see in him," the girl declared. "What do you know against him? You know him scarcely at all." "Yes," Ralph said, "I know him very little, and I confess I haven't facts and items to prove him a villain. But all the same I can't help feeling that you're running a grave risk." "Marriage is always a grave risk, and his risk's as grave as mine." "That's his affair! If he's afraid, let him back out. I wish to God he would." Isabel reclined in her chair, folding her arms and gazing a while at her cousin. "I don't think I understand you," she said at last coldly. "I don't know what you're talking about." "I believed you'd marry a man of more importance." 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!" Ralph blushed as well; his attitude embarrassed him. Physically speaking he proceeded to change it; he straightened himself, then leaned forward, resting a hand on each knee. He fixed his eyes on the ground; he had an air of the most respectful deliberation. "I'll tell you in a moment what I mean," he presently said. He felt agitated, intensely eager; now that he had opened the discussion he wished to discharge his mind. But he wished also to be superlatively gentle. Isabel waited a little--then she went on with majesty. "In everything that makes one care for people Mr. Osmond is pre-eminent. There may be nobler natures, but I've never had the pleasure of meeting one. Mr. Osmond's is the finest I know; he's good enough for me, and interesting enough, and clever enough. I'm far more struck with what he has and what he represents than with what he may lack." "I had treated myself to a charming vision of your future," Ralph observed without answering this; "I had amused myself with planning out a high destiny for you. There was to be nothing of this sort in it. You were not to come down so easily or so soon." "Come down, you say?" "Well, that renders my sense of what has happened to you. You seemed to me to be soaring far up in the blue--to be, sailing in the bright light, over the heads of men. Suddenly some one tosses up a faded rosebud--a missile that should never have reached you--and straight you drop to the ground. It hurts me," said Ralph audaciously, "hurts me as if I had fallen myself!" The look of pain and bewilderment deepened in his companion's face. "I don't understand you in the least," she repeated. "You say you amused yourself with a project for my career--I don't understand that. Don't amuse yourself too much, or I shall think you're doing it at my expense." Ralph shook his head. "I'm not afraid of your not believing that I've had great ideas for you." "What do you mean by my soaring and sailing?" she pursued. "I've never moved on a higher plane than I'm moving on now. There's nothing higher for a girl than to marry a--a person she likes," said poor Isabel, wandering into the didactic. "It's your liking the person we speak of that I venture to criticise, my dear cousin. I should have said that the man for you would have been a more active, larger, freer sort of nature." Ralph hesitated, then added: "I can't get over the sense that Osmond is somehow--well, small." He had uttered the last word with no great assurance; he was afraid she would flash out again. But to his surprise she was quiet; she had the air of considering. "Small?" She made it sound immense. "I think he's narrow, selfish. He takes himself so seriously!" "He has a great respect for himself; I don't blame him for that," said Isabel. "It makes one more sure to respect others." Ralph for a moment felt almost reassured by her reasonable tone. "Yes, but everything is relative; one ought to feel one's relation to things--to others. I don't think Mr. Osmond does that." "I've chiefly to do with his relation to me. In that he's excellent." "He's the incarnation of taste," Ralph went on, thinking hard how he could best express Gilbert Osmond's sinister attributes without putting himself in the wrong by seeming to describe him coarsely. He wished to describe him impersonally, scientifically. "He judges and measures, approves and condemns, altogether by that." "It's a happy thing then that his taste should be exquisite." "It's exquisite, indeed, since it has led him to select you as his bride. But have you ever seen such a taste--a really exquisite one--ruffled?" "I hope it may never be my fortune to fail to gratify my husband's." At these words a sudden passion leaped to Ralph's lips. "Ah, that's wilful, that's unworthy of you! You were not meant to be measured in that way--you were meant for something better than to keep guard over the sensibilities of a sterile dilettante!" Isabel rose quickly and he did the same, so that they stood for a moment looking at each other as if he had flung down a defiance or an insult. But "You go too far," she simply breathed. "I've said what I had on my mind--and I've said it because I love you!" Isabel turned pale: was he too on that tiresome list? She had a sudden wish to strike him off. "Ah then, you're not disinterested!" "I love you, but I love without hope," said Ralph quickly, forcing a smile and feeling that in that last declaration he had expressed more than he intended. Isabel moved away and stood looking into the sunny stillness of the garden; but after a little she turned back to him. "I'm afraid your talk then is the wildness of despair! I don't understand it--but it doesn't matter. I'm not arguing with you; it's impossible I should; I've only tried to listen to you. I'm much obliged to you for attempting to explain," she said gently, as if the anger with which she had just sprung up had already subsided. "It's very good of you to try to warn me, if you're really alarmed; but I won't promise to think of what you've said: I shall forget it as soon as possible. Try and forget it yourself; you've done your duty, and no man can do more. I can't explain to you what I feel, what I believe, and I wouldn't if I could." She paused a moment and then went on with an inconsequence that Ralph observed even in the midst of his eagerness to discover some symptom of concession. "I can't enter into your idea of Mr. Osmond; I can't do it justice, because I see him in quite another way. He's not important--no, he's not important; he's a man to whom importance is supremely indifferent. If that's what you mean when you call him 'small,' then he's as small as you please. I call that large--it's the largest thing I know. I won't pretend to argue with you about a person I'm going to marry," Isabel repeated. "I'm not in the least concerned to defend Mr. Osmond; he's not so weak as to need my defence. I should think it would seem strange even to yourself that I should talk of him so quietly and coldly, as if he were any one else. I wouldn't talk of him at all to any one but you; and you, after what you've said--I may just answer you once for all. Pray, would you wish me to make a mercenary marriage--what they call a marriage of ambition? I've only one ambition--to be free to follow out a good feeling. I had others once, but they've passed away. Do you complain of Mr. Osmond because he's not rich? That's just what I like him for. I've fortunately money enough; I've never felt so thankful for it as to-day. There have been moments when I should like to go and kneel down by your father's grave: he did perhaps a better thing than he knew when he put it into my power to marry a poor man--a man who has borne his poverty with such dignity, with such indifference. Mr. Osmond has never scrambled nor struggled--he has cared for no worldly prize. If that's to be narrow, if that's to be selfish, then it's very well. I'm not frightened by such words, I'm not even displeased; I'm only sorry that you should make a mistake. Others might have done so, but I'm surprised that you should. You might know a gentleman when you see one--you might know a fine mind. Mr. Osmond makes no mistakes! He knows everything, he understands everything, he has the kindest, gentlest, highest spirit. You've got hold of some false idea. It's a pity, but I can't help it; it regards you more than me." Isabel paused a moment, looking at her cousin with an eye illumined by a sentiment which contradicted the careful calmness of her manner--a mingled sentiment, to which the angry pain excited by his words and the wounded pride of having needed to justify a choice of which she felt only the nobleness and purity, equally contributed. Though she paused Ralph said nothing; he saw she had more to say. She was grand, but she was highly solicitous; she was indifferent, but she was all in a passion. "What sort of a person should you have liked me to marry?" she asked suddenly. "You talk about one's soaring and sailing, but if one marries at all one touches the earth. One has human feelings and needs, one has a heart in one's bosom, and one must marry a particular individual. Your mother has never forgiven me for not having come to a better understanding with Lord Warburton, and she's horrified at my contenting myself with a person who has none of his great advantages--no property, no title, no honours, no houses, nor lands, nor position, nor reputation, nor brilliant belongings of any sort. It's the total absence of all these things that pleases me. Mr. Osmond's simply a very lonely, a very cultivated and a very honest man--he's not a prodigious proprietor." Ralph had listened with great attention, as if everything she said merited deep consideration; but in truth he was only half thinking of the things she said, he was for the rest simply accommodating himself to the weight of his total impression--the impression of her ardent good faith. She was wrong, but she believed; she was deluded, but she was dismally consistent. It was wonderfully characteristic of her that, having invented a fine theory, about Gilbert Osmond, she loved him not for what he really possessed, but for his very poverties dressed out as honours. Ralph remembered what he had said to his father about wishing to put it into her power to meet the requirements of her imagination. He had done so, and the girl had taken full advantage of the luxury. Poor Ralph felt sick; he felt ashamed. Isabel had uttered her last words with a low solemnity of conviction which virtually terminated the discussion, and she closed it formally by turning away and walking back to the house. Ralph walked beside her, and they passed into the court together and reached the big staircase. Here he stopped and Isabel paused, turning on him a face of elation--absolutely and perversely of gratitude. His opposition had made her own conception of her conduct clearer to her. "Shall you not come up to breakfast?" she asked. "No; I want no breakfast; I'm not hungry." "You ought to eat," said the girl; "you live on air." "I do, very much, and I shall go back into the garden and take another mouthful. I came thus far simply to say this. I told you last year that if you were to get into trouble I should feel terribly sold. That's how I feel to-day." "Do you think I'm in trouble?" "One's in trouble when one's in error." "Very well," said Isabel; "I shall never complain of my trouble to you!" And she moved up the staircase. Ralph, standing there with his hands in his pockets, followed her with his eyes; then the lurking chill of the high-walled court struck him and made him shiver, so that he returned to the garden to breakfast on the Florentine sunshine.

. It is notable too, that this reminiscence of Isabel's travels is contextualized in her mind's eye -- she is awaiting Caspar Goodwood, and thinking about how much she herself has changed since she last saw him. This is a common technique that Henry James employs: the narrator lends some more concrete words for the very vague reminiscences of a character, allowing that character to reflect upon their own experiences, but also allowing the reader to reap the benefit of a more objective, summary view of certain events. "If her thoughts just now had inclined themselves to retrospect, instead of fluttering their wings nervously about the present, they would have evoked a multitude of interesting pictures," the narrator tells us. This again is called "hypothetical discourse" as coined by scholar Arlene Young . Isabel's reaction in Chapter 32 to Caspar Goodwood is curiously physical and emotional. Is she really as disinterested in him as she claims to be? The novel itself deals very little with strong, physical outbursts of emotions: Isabel's scenes with Caspar Goodwood are an exception to the rule. One theory is that Isabel is sexually attracted to Goodwood, but her Victorian prudery makes her repress this idea; she wants to escape her own sexuality in his presence. It is important to notice the reactions of others to Isabel's engagement, and how Isabel's resolution becomes more concrete in the face of their opposition. In her conversation with Mrs. Touchett, she does not quite know why she wants to marry Osmond, and she can barely articulate it. When she discusses her motivations with Ralph, her own conviction becomes more concrete. "His opposition had made her own conception of her conduct clearer to her," the narrator tells us. Ralph says that he had thought of the great "idea" she would actualize in the world only in the "negative" -- but we should notice that her marrying Osmond is actually an articulation of a negative idea -- of an idea that exists only as one in opposition to others' opinions. In other words, she feels like she freely chooses her marriage to Osmond mostly because no one in her circle seems to approve of the engagement. So the narrator tells us, the disapproval of others for Isabel "served mainly to throw into higher relief, in every way so honourable, that she married to please herself." Osmond's narcissism becomes apparent in Chapter 35. It is notable how he thinks of Isabel as a fine object, a present made to him by Madame Merle, rather than seeming to really be in love with her. Again, there is a comparison between a person and a commodity: he thinks of Isabel as a "silver plate." Consider the coldness of this extended metaphor - he continues to think of how he will heap fruits onto this plate. His conception of a good relationship is that the other person reflects one's own thoughts back to oneself -- it seems that he will give very little room for Isabel to have ideas of her own. He has the attitude of a connoisseur or collector to a commodity of value. It does not quite fit a more romantic conception of love - of loving Isabel for herself.

analysis

Isabel, when she strolled in the Cascine with her lover, felt no impulse to tell him how little he was approved at Palazzo Crescentini. The discreet opposition offered to her marriage by her aunt and her cousin made on the whole no great impression upon her; the moral of it was simply that they disliked Gilbert Osmond. This dislike was not alarming to Isabel; she scarcely even regretted it; for it served mainly to throw into higher relief the fact, in every way so honourable, that she married to please herself. One did other things to please other people; one did this for a more personal satisfaction; and Isabel's satisfaction was confirmed by her lover's admirable good conduct. Gilbert Osmond was in love, and he had never deserved less than during these still, bright days, each of them numbered, which preceded the fulfilment of his hopes, the harsh criticism passed upon him by Ralph Touchett. The chief impression produced on Isabel's spirit by this criticism was that the passion of love separated its victim terribly from every one but the loved object. She felt herself disjoined from every one she had ever known before--from her two sisters, who wrote to express a dutiful hope that she would be happy, and a surprise, somewhat more vague, at her not having chosen a consort who was the hero of a richer accumulation of anecdote; from Henrietta, who, she was sure, would come out, too late, on purpose to remonstrate; from Lord Warburton, who would certainly console himself, and from Caspar Goodwood, who perhaps would not; from her aunt, who had cold, shallow ideas about marriage, for which she was not sorry to display her contempt; and from Ralph, whose talk about having great views for her was surely but a whimsical cover for a personal disappointment. Ralph apparently wished her not to marry at all--that was what it really meant--because he was amused with the spectacle of her adventures as a single woman. His disappointment made him say angry things about the man she had preferred even to him: Isabel flattered herself that she believed Ralph had been angry. It was the more easy for her to believe this because, as I say, she had now little free or unemployed emotion for minor needs, and accepted as an incident, in fact quite as an ornament, of her lot the idea that to prefer Gilbert Osmond as she preferred him was perforce to break all other ties. 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 some one 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. This disposition, however, made him an admirable lover; it gave him a constant view of the smitten and dedicated state. He never forgot himself, as I say; and so he never forgot to be graceful and tender, to wear the appearance--which presented indeed no difficulty--of stirred senses and deep intentions. He was immensely pleased with his young lady; Madame Merle had made him a present of incalculable value. What could be a finer thing to live with than a high spirit attuned to softness? For would not the softness be all for one's self, and the strenuousness for society, which admired the air of superiority? What could be a happier gift in a companion than a quick, fanciful mind which saved one repetitions and reflected one's thought on a polished, elegant surface? Osmond hated to see his thought reproduced literally--that made it look stale and stupid; he preferred it to be freshened in the reproduction even as "words" by music. His egotism had never taken the crude form of desiring a dull wife; this lady's intelligence was to be a silver plate, not an earthen one--a plate that he might heap up with ripe fruits, to which it would give a decorative value, so that talk might become for him a sort of served dessert. He found the silver quality in this perfection in Isabel; he could tap her imagination with his knuckle and make it ring. He knew perfectly, though he had not been told, that their union enjoyed little favour with the girl's relations; but he had always treated her so completely as an independent person that it hardly seemed necessary to express regret for the attitude of her family. Nevertheless, one morning, he made an abrupt allusion to it. "It's the difference in our fortune they don't like," he said. "They think I'm in love with your money." "Are you speaking of my aunt--of my cousin?" Isabel asked. "How do you know what they think?" "You've not told me they're pleased, and when I wrote to Mrs. Touchett the other day she never answered my note. If they had been delighted I should have had some sign of it, and the fact of my being poor and you rich is the most obvious explanation of their reserve. But of course when a poor man marries a rich girl he must be prepared for imputations. I don't mind them; I only care for one thing--for your not having the shadow of a doubt. I don't care what people of whom I ask nothing think--I'm not even capable perhaps of wanting to know. I've never so concerned myself, God forgive me, and why should I begin to-day, 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. I suppose it's their business to suspect--that of your family; it's proper on the whole they should. They'll like me better some day; so will you, for that matter. Meanwhile my business is not to make myself bad blood, but simply to be thankful for life and love." "It has made me better, loving you," he said on another occasion; "it has made me wiser and easier and--I won't pretend to deny--brighter and nicer and even stronger. I used to want a great many things before and to be angry I didn't have them. Theoretically I was satisfied, as I once told you. I flattered myself I had limited my wants. But I was subject to irritation; I used to have morbid, sterile, hateful fits of hunger, of desire. Now I'm really satisfied, because I can't think of anything better. It's just as when one has been trying to spell out a book in the twilight and suddenly the lamp comes in. I had been putting out my eyes over the book of life and finding nothing to reward me for my pains; but now that I can read it properly I see it's a delightful story. My dear girl, I can't tell you how life seems to stretch there before us--what a long summer afternoon awaits us. It's the latter half of an Italian day--with a golden haze, and the shadows just lengthening, and that divine delicacy in the light, the air, the landscape, which I have loved all my life and which you love to-day. Upon my honour, I don't see why we shouldn't get on. We've got what we like--to say nothing of having each other. We've the faculty of admiration and several capital convictions. We're not stupid, we're not mean, we're not under bonds to any kind of ignorance or dreariness. You're remarkably fresh, and I'm remarkably well-seasoned. We've my poor child to amuse us; we'll try and make up some little life for her. It's all soft and mellow--it has the Italian colouring." They made a good many plans, but they left themselves also a good deal of latitude; it was a matter of course, however, that they should live for the present in Italy. It was in Italy that they had met, Italy had been a party to their first impressions of each other, and Italy should be a party to their happiness. Osmond had the attachment of old acquaintance and Isabel the stimulus of new, which seemed to assure her a future at a high level of consciousness of the beautiful. The desire for unlimited expansion had been succeeded in her soul by the sense that life was vacant without some private duty that might gather one's energies to a point. She had told Ralph she had "seen life" in a year or two and that she was already tired, not of the act of living, but of that of observing. What had become of all her ardours, her aspirations, her theories, her high estimate of her independence and her incipient conviction that she should never marry? These things had been absorbed in a more primitive need--a need the answer to which brushed away numberless questions, yet gratified infinite desires. It simplified the situation at a stroke, it came down from above like the light of the stars, and it needed no explanation. There was explanation enough in the fact that he was her lover, her own, and that she should be able to be of use to him. She could surrender to him with a kind of humility, she could marry him with a kind of pride; she was not only taking, she was giving. He brought Pansy with him two or three times to the Cascine--Pansy who was very little taller than a year before, and not much older. That she would always be a child was the conviction expressed by her father, who held her by the hand when she was in her sixteenth year and told her to go and play while he sat down a little with the pretty lady. Pansy wore a short dress and a long coat; her hat always seemed too big for her. She found pleasure in walking off, with quick, short steps, to the end of the alley, and then in walking back with a smile that seemed an appeal for approbation. Isabel approved in abundance, and the abundance had the personal touch that the child's affectionate nature craved. She watched her indications as if for herself also much depended on them--Pansy already so represented part of the service she could render, part of the responsibility she could face. Her father took so the childish view of her that he had not yet explained to her the new relation in which he stood to the elegant Miss Archer. "She doesn't know," he said to Isabel; "she doesn't guess; she thinks it perfectly natural that you and I should come and walk here together simply as good friends. There seems to me something enchantingly innocent in that; it's the way I like her to be. No, I'm not a failure, as I used to think; I've succeeded in two things. I'm to marry the woman I adore, and I've brought up my child, as I wished, in the old way." He was very fond, in all things, of the "old way"; that had struck Isabel as one of his fine, quiet, sincere notes. "It occurs to me that you'll not know whether you've succeeded until you've told her," she said. "You must see how she takes your news, She may be horrified--she may be jealous." "I'm not afraid of that; she's too fond of you on her own account. I should like to leave her in the dark a little longer--to see if it will come into her head that if we're not engaged we ought to be." Isabel was impressed by Osmond's artistic, the plastic view, as it somehow appeared, of Pansy's innocence--her own appreciation of it being more anxiously moral. She was perhaps not the less pleased when he told her a few days later that he had communicated the fact to his daughter, who had made such a pretty little speech--"Oh, then I shall have a beautiful sister!" She was neither surprised nor alarmed; she had not cried, as he expected. "Perhaps she had guessed it," said Isabel. "Don't say that; I should be disgusted if I believed that. I thought it would be just a little shock; but the way she took it proves that her good manners are paramount. That's also what I wished. You shall see for yourself; to-morrow she shall make you her congratulations in person." The meeting, on the morrow, took place at the Countess Gemini's, whither Pansy had been conducted by her father, who knew that Isabel was to come in the afternoon to return a visit made her by the Countess on learning that they were to become sisters-in-law. Calling at Casa Touchett the visitor had not found Isabel at home; but after our young woman had been ushered into the Countess's drawing-room Pansy arrived to say that her aunt would presently appear. Pansy was spending the day with that lady, who thought her of an age to begin to learn how to carry herself in company. It was Isabel's view that the little girl might have given lessons in deportment to her relative, and nothing could have justified this conviction more than the manner in which Pansy acquitted herself while they waited together for the Countess. Her father's decision, the year before, had finally been to send her back to the convent to receive the last graces, and Madame Catherine had evidently carried out her theory that Pansy was to be fitted for the great world. "Papa has told me that you've kindly consented to marry him," said this excellent woman's pupil. "It's very delightful; I think you'll suit very well." "You think I shall suit YOU?" "You'll suit me beautifully; but what I mean is that you and papa will suit each other. You're both so quiet and so serious. You're not so quiet as he--or even as Madame Merle; but you're more quiet than many others. He should not for instance have a wife like my aunt. She's always in motion, in agitation--to-day especially; you'll see when she comes in. They told us at the convent it was wrong to judge our elders, but I suppose there's no harm if we judge them favourably. You'll be a delightful companion for papa." "For you too, I hope," Isabel said. "I speak first of him on purpose. I've told you already what I myself think of you; I liked you from the first. I admire you so much that I think it will be a good fortune to have you always before me. You'll be my model; I shall try to imitate you though I'm afraid it will be very feeble. I'm very glad for papa--he needed something more than me. Without you I don't see how he could have got it. You'll be my stepmother, but we mustn't use that word. They're always said to be cruel; but I don't think you'll ever so much as pinch or even push me. I'm not afraid at all." "My good little Pansy," said Isabel gently, "I shall be ever so kind to you." A vague, inconsequent vision of her coming in some odd way to need it had intervened with the effect of a chill. "Very well then, I've nothing to fear," the child returned with her note of prepared promptitude. What teaching she had had, it seemed to suggest--or what penalties for non-performance she dreaded! Her description of her aunt had not been incorrect; the Countess Gemini was further than ever from having folded her wings. She entered the room with a flutter through the air and kissed Isabel first on the forehead and then on each cheek as if according to some ancient prescribed rite. She drew the visitor to a sofa and, looking at her with a variety of turns of the head, began to talk very much as if, seated brush in hand before an easel, she were applying a series of considered touches to a composition of figures already sketched in. "If you expect me to congratulate you I must beg you to excuse me. I don't suppose you care if I do or not; I believe you're supposed not to care--through being so clever--for all sorts of ordinary things. But I care myself if I tell fibs; I never tell them unless there's something rather good to be gained. I don't see what's to be gained with you--especially as you wouldn't believe me. I don't make professions any more than I make paper flowers or flouncey lampshades--I don't know how. My lampshades would be sure to take fire, my roses and my fibs to be larger than life. I'm very glad for my own sake that you're to marry Osmond; but I won't pretend I'm glad for yours. You're very brilliant--you know that's the way you're always spoken of; you're an heiress and very good-looking and original, not banal; so it's a good thing to have you in the family. Our family's very good, you know; Osmond will have told you that; and my mother was rather distinguished--she was called the American Corinne. But we're dreadfully fallen, I think, and perhaps you'll pick us up. I've great confidence in you; there are ever so many things I want to talk to you about. I never congratulate any girl on marrying; I think they ought to make it somehow not quite so awful a steel trap. I suppose Pansy oughtn't to hear all this; but that's what she has come to me for--to acquire the tone of society. There's no harm in her knowing what horrors she may be in for. When first I got an idea that my brother had designs on you I thought of writing to you, to recommend you, in the strongest terms, not to listen to him. Then I thought it would be disloyal, and I hate anything of that kind. Besides, as I say, I was enchanted for myself; and after all I'm very selfish. By the way, you won't respect me, not one little mite, and we shall never be intimate. I should like it, but you won't. Some day, all the same, we shall be better friends than you will believe at first. My husband will come and see you, though, as you probably know, he's on no sort of terms with Osmond. He's very fond of going to see pretty women, but I'm not afraid of you. In the first place I don't care what he does. In the second, you won't care a straw for him; he won't be a bit, at any time, your affair, and, stupid as he is, he'll see you're not his. Some day, if you can stand it, I'll tell you all about him. Do you think my niece ought to go out of the room? Pansy, go and practise a little in my boudoir." "Let her stay, please," said Isabel. "I would rather hear nothing that Pansy may not!"

Isabel feels isolated now that she knows how her friends disapprove of her marriage. The narrator tells us: "the chief impression produced on Isabel's spirit by this criticism was that the passion of love separated its victim terribly from everyone but the loved object". She knew Henrietta would come out to disapprove of her, and she thinks also of the disapproval that Caspar Goodwood had and that Lord Warburton would undoubtedly have. Her sisters have written to her out of duty, but they also wonder why she did not make a better match. Osmond is satisfied - the narrator describes him as full of self-control, and capable thus of acting tender and kind. He does think that Madame Merle has made him a wonderful "present". He is glad that Isabel is not dull; he thinks of her as a "silver plate" that reflects back to him his own thoughts in an original form, making them seem all the more splendid. He knows though that their relations do not approve, and he tells Isabel that he thinks they disapprove because of their difference in fortune. He defends himself by saying that he has shown himself to never care for money, insofar as he has never tried to earn it. He tells her they will get on very well. Isabel meanwhile feels that she is surrendering to Osmond in an act of humility - rather than simply taking in the act of marriage, she has something to give. She is tired of observing - after a year of traveling abroad - and now wants to engage in the "act of living" even more. No longer did she feel she could never marry - she has a more primitive need to be beneficent. She is glad to have a private duty "that might gather one's energies to a point". Pansy is glad the two will marry. She thinks that Isabel and her father suit each other well. When they are discussing the matter though, Isabel has a strange fear that she will one day have to protect Pansy from harm. Countess Gemini tells Isabel that she is glad for herself that Isabel and Osmond will marry, but she cannot be glad for Isabel. She declares that she only tells fibs if she has something to gain from it, and therefore she is being honest with Isabel when she tells her that she and Osmond have fallen quite low in status. She predicts that Isabel and herself will never be quite intimate with each other. She makes some declarations as to marriage in general, how she sees them as a "steel trap" for women

summary

Isabel, when she strolled in the Cascine with her lover, felt no impulse to tell him how little he was approved at Palazzo Crescentini. The discreet opposition offered to her marriage by her aunt and her cousin made on the whole no great impression upon her; the moral of it was simply that they disliked Gilbert Osmond. This dislike was not alarming to Isabel; she scarcely even regretted it; for it served mainly to throw into higher relief the fact, in every way so honourable, that she married to please herself. One did other things to please other people; one did this for a more personal satisfaction; and Isabel's satisfaction was confirmed by her lover's admirable good conduct. Gilbert Osmond was in love, and he had never deserved less than during these still, bright days, each of them numbered, which preceded the fulfilment of his hopes, the harsh criticism passed upon him by Ralph Touchett. The chief impression produced on Isabel's spirit by this criticism was that the passion of love separated its victim terribly from every one but the loved object. She felt herself disjoined from every one she had ever known before--from her two sisters, who wrote to express a dutiful hope that she would be happy, and a surprise, somewhat more vague, at her not having chosen a consort who was the hero of a richer accumulation of anecdote; from Henrietta, who, she was sure, would come out, too late, on purpose to remonstrate; from Lord Warburton, who would certainly console himself, and from Caspar Goodwood, who perhaps would not; from her aunt, who had cold, shallow ideas about marriage, for which she was not sorry to display her contempt; and from Ralph, whose talk about having great views for her was surely but a whimsical cover for a personal disappointment. Ralph apparently wished her not to marry at all--that was what it really meant--because he was amused with the spectacle of her adventures as a single woman. His disappointment made him say angry things about the man she had preferred even to him: Isabel flattered herself that she believed Ralph had been angry. It was the more easy for her to believe this because, as I say, she had now little free or unemployed emotion for minor needs, and accepted as an incident, in fact quite as an ornament, of her lot the idea that to prefer Gilbert Osmond as she preferred him was perforce to break all other ties. 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 some one 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. This disposition, however, made him an admirable lover; it gave him a constant view of the smitten and dedicated state. He never forgot himself, as I say; and so he never forgot to be graceful and tender, to wear the appearance--which presented indeed no difficulty--of stirred senses and deep intentions. He was immensely pleased with his young lady; Madame Merle had made him a present of incalculable value. What could be a finer thing to live with than a high spirit attuned to softness? For would not the softness be all for one's self, and the strenuousness for society, which admired the air of superiority? What could be a happier gift in a companion than a quick, fanciful mind which saved one repetitions and reflected one's thought on a polished, elegant surface? Osmond hated to see his thought reproduced literally--that made it look stale and stupid; he preferred it to be freshened in the reproduction even as "words" by music. His egotism had never taken the crude form of desiring a dull wife; this lady's intelligence was to be a silver plate, not an earthen one--a plate that he might heap up with ripe fruits, to which it would give a decorative value, so that talk might become for him a sort of served dessert. He found the silver quality in this perfection in Isabel; he could tap her imagination with his knuckle and make it ring. He knew perfectly, though he had not been told, that their union enjoyed little favour with the girl's relations; but he had always treated her so completely as an independent person that it hardly seemed necessary to express regret for the attitude of her family. Nevertheless, one morning, he made an abrupt allusion to it. "It's the difference in our fortune they don't like," he said. "They think I'm in love with your money." "Are you speaking of my aunt--of my cousin?" Isabel asked. "How do you know what they think?" "You've not told me they're pleased, and when I wrote to Mrs. Touchett the other day she never answered my note. If they had been delighted I should have had some sign of it, and the fact of my being poor and you rich is the most obvious explanation of their reserve. But of course when a poor man marries a rich girl he must be prepared for imputations. I don't mind them; I only care for one thing--for your not having the shadow of a doubt. I don't care what people of whom I ask nothing think--I'm not even capable perhaps of wanting to know. I've never so concerned myself, God forgive me, and why should I begin to-day, 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. I suppose it's their business to suspect--that of your family; it's proper on the whole they should. They'll like me better some day; so will you, for that matter. Meanwhile my business is not to make myself bad blood, but simply to be thankful for life and love." "It has made me better, loving you," he said on another occasion; "it has made me wiser and easier and--I won't pretend to deny--brighter and nicer and even stronger. I used to want a great many things before and to be angry I didn't have them. Theoretically I was satisfied, as I once told you. I flattered myself I had limited my wants. But I was subject to irritation; I used to have morbid, sterile, hateful fits of hunger, of desire. Now I'm really satisfied, because I can't think of anything better. It's just as when one has been trying to spell out a book in the twilight and suddenly the lamp comes in. I had been putting out my eyes over the book of life and finding nothing to reward me for my pains; but now that I can read it properly I see it's a delightful story. My dear girl, I can't tell you how life seems to stretch there before us--what a long summer afternoon awaits us. It's the latter half of an Italian day--with a golden haze, and the shadows just lengthening, and that divine delicacy in the light, the air, the landscape, which I have loved all my life and which you love to-day. Upon my honour, I don't see why we shouldn't get on. We've got what we like--to say nothing of having each other. We've the faculty of admiration and several capital convictions. We're not stupid, we're not mean, we're not under bonds to any kind of ignorance or dreariness. You're remarkably fresh, and I'm remarkably well-seasoned. We've my poor child to amuse us; we'll try and make up some little life for her. It's all soft and mellow--it has the Italian colouring." They made a good many plans, but they left themselves also a good deal of latitude; it was a matter of course, however, that they should live for the present in Italy. It was in Italy that they had met, Italy had been a party to their first impressions of each other, and Italy should be a party to their happiness. Osmond had the attachment of old acquaintance and Isabel the stimulus of new, which seemed to assure her a future at a high level of consciousness of the beautiful. The desire for unlimited expansion had been succeeded in her soul by the sense that life was vacant without some private duty that might gather one's energies to a point. She had told Ralph she had "seen life" in a year or two and that she was already tired, not of the act of living, but of that of observing. What had become of all her ardours, her aspirations, her theories, her high estimate of her independence and her incipient conviction that she should never marry? These things had been absorbed in a more primitive need--a need the answer to which brushed away numberless questions, yet gratified infinite desires. It simplified the situation at a stroke, it came down from above like the light of the stars, and it needed no explanation. There was explanation enough in the fact that he was her lover, her own, and that she should be able to be of use to him. She could surrender to him with a kind of humility, she could marry him with a kind of pride; she was not only taking, she was giving. He brought Pansy with him two or three times to the Cascine--Pansy who was very little taller than a year before, and not much older. That she would always be a child was the conviction expressed by her father, who held her by the hand when she was in her sixteenth year and told her to go and play while he sat down a little with the pretty lady. Pansy wore a short dress and a long coat; her hat always seemed too big for her. She found pleasure in walking off, with quick, short steps, to the end of the alley, and then in walking back with a smile that seemed an appeal for approbation. Isabel approved in abundance, and the abundance had the personal touch that the child's affectionate nature craved. She watched her indications as if for herself also much depended on them--Pansy already so represented part of the service she could render, part of the responsibility she could face. Her father took so the childish view of her that he had not yet explained to her the new relation in which he stood to the elegant Miss Archer. "She doesn't know," he said to Isabel; "she doesn't guess; she thinks it perfectly natural that you and I should come and walk here together simply as good friends. There seems to me something enchantingly innocent in that; it's the way I like her to be. No, I'm not a failure, as I used to think; I've succeeded in two things. I'm to marry the woman I adore, and I've brought up my child, as I wished, in the old way." He was very fond, in all things, of the "old way"; that had struck Isabel as one of his fine, quiet, sincere notes. "It occurs to me that you'll not know whether you've succeeded until you've told her," she said. "You must see how she takes your news, She may be horrified--she may be jealous." "I'm not afraid of that; she's too fond of you on her own account. I should like to leave her in the dark a little longer--to see if it will come into her head that if we're not engaged we ought to be." Isabel was impressed by Osmond's artistic, the plastic view, as it somehow appeared, of Pansy's innocence--her own appreciation of it being more anxiously moral. She was perhaps not the less pleased when he told her a few days later that he had communicated the fact to his daughter, who had made such a pretty little speech--"Oh, then I shall have a beautiful sister!" She was neither surprised nor alarmed; she had not cried, as he expected. "Perhaps she had guessed it," said Isabel. "Don't say that; I should be disgusted if I believed that. I thought it would be just a little shock; but the way she took it proves that her good manners are paramount. That's also what I wished. You shall see for yourself; to-morrow she shall make you her congratulations in person." The meeting, on the morrow, took place at the Countess Gemini's, whither Pansy had been conducted by her father, who knew that Isabel was to come in the afternoon to return a visit made her by the Countess on learning that they were to become sisters-in-law. Calling at Casa Touchett the visitor had not found Isabel at home; but after our young woman had been ushered into the Countess's drawing-room Pansy arrived to say that her aunt would presently appear. Pansy was spending the day with that lady, who thought her of an age to begin to learn how to carry herself in company. It was Isabel's view that the little girl might have given lessons in deportment to her relative, and nothing could have justified this conviction more than the manner in which Pansy acquitted herself while they waited together for the Countess. Her father's decision, the year before, had finally been to send her back to the convent to receive the last graces, and Madame Catherine had evidently carried out her theory that Pansy was to be fitted for the great world. "Papa has told me that you've kindly consented to marry him," said this excellent woman's pupil. "It's very delightful; I think you'll suit very well." "You think I shall suit YOU?" "You'll suit me beautifully; but what I mean is that you and papa will suit each other. You're both so quiet and so serious. You're not so quiet as he--or even as Madame Merle; but you're more quiet than many others. He should not for instance have a wife like my aunt. She's always in motion, in agitation--to-day especially; you'll see when she comes in. They told us at the convent it was wrong to judge our elders, but I suppose there's no harm if we judge them favourably. You'll be a delightful companion for papa." "For you too, I hope," Isabel said. "I speak first of him on purpose. I've told you already what I myself think of you; I liked you from the first. I admire you so much that I think it will be a good fortune to have you always before me. You'll be my model; I shall try to imitate you though I'm afraid it will be very feeble. I'm very glad for papa--he needed something more than me. Without you I don't see how he could have got it. You'll be my stepmother, but we mustn't use that word. They're always said to be cruel; but I don't think you'll ever so much as pinch or even push me. I'm not afraid at all." "My good little Pansy," said Isabel gently, "I shall be ever so kind to you." A vague, inconsequent vision of her coming in some odd way to need it had intervened with the effect of a chill. "Very well then, I've nothing to fear," the child returned with her note of prepared promptitude. What teaching she had had, it seemed to suggest--or what penalties for non-performance she dreaded! Her description of her aunt had not been incorrect; the Countess Gemini was further than ever from having folded her wings. She entered the room with a flutter through the air and kissed Isabel first on the forehead and then on each cheek as if according to some ancient prescribed rite. She drew the visitor to a sofa and, looking at her with a variety of turns of the head, began to talk very much as if, seated brush in hand before an easel, she were applying a series of considered touches to a composition of figures already sketched in. "If you expect me to congratulate you I must beg you to excuse me. I don't suppose you care if I do or not; I believe you're supposed not to care--through being so clever--for all sorts of ordinary things. But I care myself if I tell fibs; I never tell them unless there's something rather good to be gained. I don't see what's to be gained with you--especially as you wouldn't believe me. I don't make professions any more than I make paper flowers or flouncey lampshades--I don't know how. My lampshades would be sure to take fire, my roses and my fibs to be larger than life. I'm very glad for my own sake that you're to marry Osmond; but I won't pretend I'm glad for yours. You're very brilliant--you know that's the way you're always spoken of; you're an heiress and very good-looking and original, not banal; so it's a good thing to have you in the family. Our family's very good, you know; Osmond will have told you that; and my mother was rather distinguished--she was called the American Corinne. But we're dreadfully fallen, I think, and perhaps you'll pick us up. I've great confidence in you; there are ever so many things I want to talk to you about. I never congratulate any girl on marrying; I think they ought to make it somehow not quite so awful a steel trap. I suppose Pansy oughtn't to hear all this; but that's what she has come to me for--to acquire the tone of society. There's no harm in her knowing what horrors she may be in for. When first I got an idea that my brother had designs on you I thought of writing to you, to recommend you, in the strongest terms, not to listen to him. Then I thought it would be disloyal, and I hate anything of that kind. Besides, as I say, I was enchanted for myself; and after all I'm very selfish. By the way, you won't respect me, not one little mite, and we shall never be intimate. I should like it, but you won't. Some day, all the same, we shall be better friends than you will believe at first. My husband will come and see you, though, as you probably know, he's on no sort of terms with Osmond. He's very fond of going to see pretty women, but I'm not afraid of you. In the first place I don't care what he does. In the second, you won't care a straw for him; he won't be a bit, at any time, your affair, and, stupid as he is, he'll see you're not his. Some day, if you can stand it, I'll tell you all about him. Do you think my niece ought to go out of the room? Pansy, go and practise a little in my boudoir." "Let her stay, please," said Isabel. "I would rather hear nothing that Pansy may not!"

. It is notable too, that this reminiscence of Isabel's travels is contextualized in her mind's eye -- she is awaiting Caspar Goodwood, and thinking about how much she herself has changed since she last saw him. This is a common technique that Henry James employs: the narrator lends some more concrete words for the very vague reminiscences of a character, allowing that character to reflect upon their own experiences, but also allowing the reader to reap the benefit of a more objective, summary view of certain events. "If her thoughts just now had inclined themselves to retrospect, instead of fluttering their wings nervously about the present, they would have evoked a multitude of interesting pictures," the narrator tells us. This again is called "hypothetical discourse" as coined by scholar Arlene Young . Isabel's reaction in Chapter 32 to Caspar Goodwood is curiously physical and emotional. Is she really as disinterested in him as she claims to be? The novel itself deals very little with strong, physical outbursts of emotions: Isabel's scenes with Caspar Goodwood are an exception to the rule. One theory is that Isabel is sexually attracted to Goodwood, but her Victorian prudery makes her repress this idea; she wants to escape her own sexuality in his presence. It is important to notice the reactions of others to Isabel's engagement, and how Isabel's resolution becomes more concrete in the face of their opposition. In her conversation with Mrs. Touchett, she does not quite know why she wants to marry Osmond, and she can barely articulate it. When she discusses her motivations with Ralph, her own conviction becomes more concrete. "His opposition had made her own conception of her conduct clearer to her," the narrator tells us. Ralph says that he had thought of the great "idea" she would actualize in the world only in the "negative" -- but we should notice that her marrying Osmond is actually an articulation of a negative idea -- of an idea that exists only as one in opposition to others' opinions. In other words, she feels like she freely chooses her marriage to Osmond mostly because no one in her circle seems to approve of the engagement. So the narrator tells us, the disapproval of others for Isabel "served mainly to throw into higher relief, in every way so honourable, that she married to please herself." Osmond's narcissism becomes apparent in Chapter 35. It is notable how he thinks of Isabel as a fine object, a present made to him by Madame Merle, rather than seeming to really be in love with her. Again, there is a comparison between a person and a commodity: he thinks of Isabel as a "silver plate." Consider the coldness of this extended metaphor - he continues to think of how he will heap fruits onto this plate. His conception of a good relationship is that the other person reflects one's own thoughts back to oneself -- it seems that he will give very little room for Isabel to have ideas of her own. He has the attitude of a connoisseur or collector to a commodity of value. It does not quite fit a more romantic conception of love - of loving Isabel for herself.

analysis

One afternoon of the autumn of 1876, toward dusk, a young man of pleasing appearance rang at the door of a small apartment on the third floor of an old Roman house. On its being opened he enquired for Madame Merle; whereupon the servant, a neat, plain woman, with a French face and a lady's maid's manner, ushered him into a diminutive drawing-room and requested the favour of his name. "Mr. Edward Rosier," said the young man, who sat down to wait till his hostess should appear. The reader will perhaps not have forgotten that Mr. Rosier was an ornament of the American circle in Paris, but it may also be remembered that he sometimes vanished from its horizon. He had spent a portion of several winters at Pau, and as he was a gentleman of constituted habits he might have continued for years to pay his annual visit to this charming resort. In the summer of 1876, however, an incident befell him which changed the current not only of his thoughts, but of his customary sequences. He passed a month in the Upper Engadine and encountered at Saint Moritz a charming young girl. To this little person he began to pay, on the spot, particular attention: she struck him as exactly the household angel he had long been looking for. He was never precipitate, he was nothing if not discreet, so he forbore for the present to declare his passion; but it seemed to him when they parted--the young lady to go down into Italy and her admirer to proceed to Geneva, where he was under bonds to join other friends--that he should be romantically wretched if he were not to see her again. The simplest way to do so was to go in the autumn to Rome, where Miss Osmond was domiciled with her family. Mr. Rosier started on his pilgrimage to the Italian capital and reached it on the first of November. It was a pleasant thing to do, but for the young man there was a strain of the heroic in the enterprise. He might expose himself, unseasoned, to the poison of the Roman air, which in November lay, notoriously, much in wait. Fortune, however, favours the brave; and this adventurer, who took three grains of quinine a day, had at the end of a month no cause to deplore his temerity. He had made to a certain extent good use of his time; he had devoted it in vain to finding a flaw in Pansy Osmond's composition. She was admirably finished; she had had the last touch; she was really a consummate piece. He thought of her in amorous meditation a good deal as he might have thought of a Dresden-china shepherdess. Miss Osmond, indeed, in the bloom of her juvenility, had a hint of the rococo which Rosier, whose taste was predominantly for that manner, could not fail to appreciate. That he esteemed the productions of comparatively frivolous periods would have been apparent from the attention he bestowed upon Madame Merle's drawing-room, which, although furnished with specimens of every style, was especially rich in articles of the last two centuries. He had immediately put a glass into one eye and looked round; and then "By Jove, she has some jolly good things!" he had yearningly murmured. The room was small and densely filled with furniture; it gave an impression of faded silk and little statuettes which might totter if one moved. Rosier got up and wandered about with his careful tread, bending over the tables charged with knick-knacks and the cushions embossed with princely arms. When Madame Merle came in she found him standing before the fireplace with his nose very close to the great lace flounce attached to the damask cover of the mantel. He had lifted it delicately, as if he were smelling it. "It's old Venetian," she said; "it's rather good." "It's too good for this; you ought to wear it." "They tell me you have some better in Paris, in the same situation." "Ah, but I can't wear mine," smiled the visitor. "I don't see why you shouldn't! I've better lace than that to wear." His eyes wandered, lingeringly, round the room again. "You've some very good things." "Yes, but I hate them." "Do you want to get rid of them?" the young man quickly asked. "No, it's good to have something to hate: one works it off!" "I love my things," said Mr. Rosier as he sat there flushed with all his recognitions. "But it's not about them, nor about yours, that I came to talk to you." He paused a moment and then, with greater softness: "I care more for Miss Osmond than for all the bibelots in Europe!" Madame Merle opened wide eyes. "Did you come to tell me that?" "I came to ask your advice." 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." "Why not, if he's in a difficult position? That's often the case with a man in love. I've been in love before, and I know. But never so much as this time--really never so much. I should like particularly to know what you think of my prospects. I'm afraid that for Mr. Osmond I'm not--well, a real collector's piece." "Do you wish me to intercede?" Madame Merle asked with her fine arms folded and her handsome mouth drawn up to the left. "If you could say a good word for me I should be greatly obliged. There will be no use in my troubling Miss Osmond unless I have good reason to believe her father will consent." "You're very considerate; that's in your favour. But you assume in rather an off-hand way that I think you a prize." "You've been very kind to me," said the young man. "That's why I came." "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. But he looked, in spite of it, literally apprehensive and consistently strenuous. "Ah, I thought you liked me for myself!" "I like you very much; but, if you please, we won't analyse. Pardon me if I seem patronising, but I think you a perfect little gentleman. I must tell you, however, that I've not the marrying of Pansy Osmond." "I didn't suppose that. But you've seemed to me intimate with her family, and I thought you might have influence." Madame Merle considered. "Whom do you call her family?" "Why, her father; and--how do you say it in English?--her belle-mere." "Mr. Osmond's her father, certainly; but his wife can scarcely be termed a member of her family. Mrs. Osmond has nothing to do with marrying her." "I'm sorry for that," said Rosier with an amiable sigh of good faith. "I think Mrs. Osmond would favour me." "Very likely--if her husband doesn't." He raised his eyebrows. "Does she take the opposite line from him?" "In everything. They think quite differently." "Well," said Rosier, "I'm sorry for that; but it's none of my business. She's very fond of Pansy." "Yes, she's very fond of Pansy." "And Pansy has a great affection for her. She has told me how she loves her as if she were her own mother." "You must, after all, have had some very intimate talk with the poor child," said Madame Merle. "Have you declared your sentiments?" "Never!" cried Rosier, lifting his neatly-gloved hand. "Never till I've assured myself of those of the parents." "You always wait for that? You've excellent principles; you observe the proprieties." "I think you're laughing at me," the young man murmured, dropping back in his chair and feeling his small moustache. "I didn't expect that of you, Madame Merle." She shook her head calmly, like a person who saw things as she saw them. "You don't do me justice. I think your conduct in excellent taste and the best you could adopt. Yes, that's what I think." "I wouldn't agitate her--only to agitate her; I love her too much for that," said Ned Rosier. "I'm glad, after all, that you've told me," Madame Merle went on. "Leave it to me a little; I think I can help you." "I said you were the person to come to!" her visitor cried with prompt elation. "You were very clever," Madame Merle returned more dryly. "When I say I can help you I mean once assuming your cause to be good. Let us think a little if it is." "I'm awfully decent, you know," said Rosier earnestly. "I won't say I've no faults, but I'll say I've no vices." "All that's negative, and it always depends, also, on what people call vices. What's the positive side? What's the virtuous? What have you got besides your Spanish lace and your Dresden teacups?" "I've a comfortable little fortune--about forty thousand francs a year. With the talent I have for arranging, we can live beautifully on such an income." "Beautifully, no. Sufficiently, yes. Even that depends on where you live." "Well, in Paris. I would undertake it in Paris." Madame Merle's mouth rose to the left. "It wouldn't be famous; you'd have to make use of the teacups, and they'd get broken." "We don't want to be famous. If Miss Osmond should have everything pretty it would be enough. When one's as pretty as she one can afford--well, quite cheap faience. She ought never to wear anything but muslin--without the sprig," said Rosier reflectively. "Wouldn't you even allow her the sprig? She'd be much obliged to you at any rate for that theory." "It's the correct one, I assure you; and I'm sure she'd enter into it. She understands all that; that's why I love her." "She's a very good little girl, and most tidy--also extremely graceful. But her father, to the best of my belief, can give her nothing." Rosier scarce demurred. "I don't in the least desire that he should. But I may remark, all the same, that he lives like a rich man." "The money's his wife's; she brought him a large fortune." "Mrs. Osmond then is very fond of her stepdaughter; she may do something." "For a love-sick swain you have your eyes about you!" Madame Merle exclaimed with a laugh. "I esteem a dot very much. I can do without it, but I esteem it." "Mrs. Osmond," Madame Merle went on, "will probably prefer to keep her money for her own children." "Her own children? Surely she has none." "She may have yet. She had a poor little boy, who died two years ago, six months after his birth. Others therefore may come." "I hope they will, if it will make her happy. She's a splendid woman." Madame Merle failed to burst into speech. "Ah, about her there's much to be said. Splendid as you like! We've not exactly made out that you're a parti. The absence of vices is hardly a source of income. "Pardon me, I think it may be," said Rosier quite lucidly. "You'll be a touching couple, living on your innocence!" "I think you underrate me." "You're not so innocent as that? Seriously," said Madame Merle, "of course forty thousand francs a year and a nice character are a combination to be considered. I don't say it's to be jumped at, but there might be a worse offer. Mr. Osmond, however, will probably incline to believe he can do better." "HE can do so perhaps; but what can his daughter do? She can't do better than marry the man she loves. For she does, you know," Rosier added eagerly. "She does--I know it." "Ah," cried the young man, "I said you were the person to come to." "But I don't know how you know it, if you haven't asked her," Madame Merle went on. "In such a case there's no need of asking and telling; as you say, we're an innocent couple. How did YOU know it?" "I who am not innocent? By being very crafty. Leave it to me; I'll find out for you." Rosier got up and stood smoothing his hat. "You say that rather coldly. Don't simply find out how it is, but try to make it as it should be." "I'll do my best. I'll try to make the most of your advantages." "Thank you so very much. Meanwhile then I'll say a word to Mrs. Osmond." "Gardez-vous-en bien!" And Madame Merle was on her feet. "Don't set her going, or you'll spoil everything." Rosier gazed into his hat; he wondered whether his hostess HAD been after all the right person to come to. "I don't think I understand you. I'm an old friend of Mrs. Osmond, and I think she would like me to succeed." "Be an old friend as much as you like; the more old friends she has the better, for she doesn't get on very well with some of her new. But don't for the present try to make her take up the cudgels for you. Her husband may have other views, and, as a person who wishes her well, I advise you not to multiply points of difference between them." Poor Rosier's face assumed an expression of alarm; a suit for the hand of Pansy Osmond was even a more complicated business than his taste for proper transitions had allowed. But the extreme good sense which he concealed under a surface suggesting that of a careful owner's "best set" came to his assistance. "I don't see that I'm bound to consider Mr. Osmond so very much!" he exclaimed. "No, but you should consider HER. You say you're an old friend. Would you make her suffer?" "Not for the world." "Then be very careful, and let the matter alone till I've taken a few soundings." "Let the matter alone, dear Madame Merle? Remember that I'm in love." "Oh, you won't burn up! Why did you come to me, if you're not to heed what I say?" "You're very kind; I'll be very good," the young man promised. "But I'm afraid Mr. Osmond's pretty hard," he added in his mild voice as he went to the door. Madame Merle gave a short laugh. "It has been said before. But his wife isn't easy either." "Ah, she's a splendid woman!" Ned Rosier repeated, for departure. He resolved that his conduct should be worthy of an aspirant who was already a model of discretion; but he saw nothing in any pledge he had given Madame Merle that made it improper he should keep himself in spirits by an occasional visit to Miss Osmond's home. He reflected constantly on what his adviser had said to him, and turned over in his mind the impression of her rather circumspect tone. He had gone to her de confiance, as they put it in Paris; but it was possible he had been precipitate. He found difficulty in thinking of himself as rash--he had incurred this reproach so rarely; but it certainly was true that he had known Madame Merle only for the last month, and that his thinking her a delightful woman was not, when one came to look into it, a reason for assuming that she would be eager to push Pansy Osmond into his arms, gracefully arranged as these members might be to receive her. She had indeed shown him benevolence, and she was a person of consideration among the girl's people, where she had a rather striking appearance (Rosier had more than once wondered how she managed it) of being intimate without being familiar. But possibly he had exaggerated these advantages. There was no particular reason why she should take trouble for him; a charming woman was charming to every one, and Rosier felt rather a fool when he thought of his having appealed to her on the ground that she had distinguished him. Very likely--though she had appeared to say it in joke--she was really only thinking of his bibelots. Had it come into her head that he might offer her two or three of the gems of his collection? If she would only help him to marry Miss Osmond he would present her with his whole museum. He could hardly say so to her outright; it would seem too gross a bribe. But he should like her to believe it. It was with these thoughts that he went again to Mrs. Osmond's, Mrs. Osmond having an "evening"--she had taken the Thursday of each week--when his presence could be accounted for on general principles of civility. The object of Mr. Rosier's well-regulated affection dwelt in a high house in the very heart of Rome; a dark and massive structure overlooking a sunny piazzetta in the neighbourhood of the Farnese Palace. In a palace, too, little Pansy lived--a palace by Roman measure, but a dungeon to poor Rosier's apprehensive mind. It seemed to him of evil omen that the young lady he wished to marry, and whose fastidious father he doubted of his ability to conciliate, should be immured in a kind of domestic fortress, a pile which bore a stern old Roman name, which smelt of historic deeds, of crime and craft and violence, which was mentioned in "Murray" and visited by tourists who looked, on a vague survey, disappointed and depressed, and which had frescoes by Caravaggio in the piano nobile and a row of mutilated statues and dusty urns in the wide, nobly-arched loggia overhanging the damp court where a fountain gushed out of a mossy niche. In a less preoccupied frame of mind he could have done justice to the Palazzo Roccanera; he could have entered into the sentiment of Mrs. Osmond, who had once told him that on settling themselves in Rome she and her husband had chosen this habitation for the love of local colour. It had local colour enough, and though he knew less about architecture than about Limoges enamels he could see that the proportions of the windows and even the details of the cornice had quite the grand air. But Rosier was haunted by the conviction that at picturesque periods young girls had been shut up there to keep them from their true loves, and then, under the threat of being thrown into convents, had been forced into unholy marriages. There was one point, however, to which he always did justice when once he found himself in Mrs. Osmond's warm, rich-looking reception-rooms, which were on the second floor. He acknowledged that these people were very strong in "good things." It was a taste of Osmond's own--not at all of hers; this she had told him the first time he came to the house, when, after asking himself for a quarter of an hour whether they had even better "French" than he in Paris, he was obliged on the spot to admit that they had, very much, and vanquished his envy, as a gentleman should, to the point of expressing to his hostess his pure admiration of her treasures. He learned from Mrs. Osmond that her husband had made a large collection before their marriage and that, though he had annexed a number of fine pieces within the last three years, he had achieved his greatest finds at a time when he had not the advantage of her advice. Rosier interpreted this information according to principles of his own. For "advice" read "cash," he said to himself; and the fact that Gilbert Osmond had landed his highest prizes during his impecunious season confirmed his most cherished doctrine--the doctrine that a collector may freely be poor if he be only patient. In general, when Rosier presented himself on a Thursday evening, his first recognition was for the walls of the saloon; there were three or four objects his eyes really yearned for. But after his talk with Madame Merle he felt the extreme seriousness of his position; and now, when he came in, he looked about for the daughter of the house with such eagerness as might be permitted a gentleman whose smile, as he crossed a threshold, always took everything comfortable for granted.

In the autumn of 1876, Edward Rosier visits Madame Merle. The reader will remember that Edward Rosier had met Isabel's acquaintance briefly in Paris. He was part of the American circle there. He is visiting Madame Merle because he had met Pansy in Saint Moritz, where he fell in love with her. He knows Madame Merle is close with the family and wants her to advise him. He thinks of Pansy as "admirably finished," a "consummate piece". It will be remembered that Edward Rosier is quite a collector. He immediately appreciates all of Madame Merle's fine things as he waits for her to greet him. He declares to Madame Merle that he cares more for Pansy Osmond than "all the bibelots in Europe. He has come to ask for advice, and to be counseled on his prospects as a suitor for Pansy. Madame Merle agrees to help him, although she asks him what else he has to offer in marriage. He tells her he has a fortune of forty thousand francs a year. Merle thinks one might live sufficiently on such a sum, but not beautifully. She mentions that Pansy will bring little to a marriage, and that she does not think that Isabel will give her a dowry. Merle makes fun of Edward Rosier a bit, for being naive about money. We learn that Isabel and Osmond do not yet have children, and that they have opposite opinions in everything. Merle thinks that Osmond will be inclined to think he can do better for Pansy. Rosier thinks though that Pansy is in love with him. Madame Merle points out that he does not know this - he has not asked Pansy. Merle says she will find out for him though. He wants to speak to Isabel as well about the matter, but Merle cautions him that this would set Osmond against him. Edward Rosier nevertheless goes to see Isabel, realizing that there is no real reason that Madame Merle would really help him. Pansy is now living in a massive structure in the heart of Rome with Isabel and Osmond. Mr. Rosier thinks of this house as an evil omen, a dungeon. He thought of the palace as fully of Osmond's own taste, and not at all of Isabel's. He had learned from Isabel that her husband had added a lot to his collection after their marriage. Rosier thinks of Osmond as a good collector - he had been patient in marriage, and thus had landed the great prizes once he had finally married. Edward Rosier goes to visit Isabel who is now Mrs. Osmond

summary

One afternoon of the autumn of 1876, toward dusk, a young man of pleasing appearance rang at the door of a small apartment on the third floor of an old Roman house. On its being opened he enquired for Madame Merle; whereupon the servant, a neat, plain woman, with a French face and a lady's maid's manner, ushered him into a diminutive drawing-room and requested the favour of his name. "Mr. Edward Rosier," said the young man, who sat down to wait till his hostess should appear. The reader will perhaps not have forgotten that Mr. Rosier was an ornament of the American circle in Paris, but it may also be remembered that he sometimes vanished from its horizon. He had spent a portion of several winters at Pau, and as he was a gentleman of constituted habits he might have continued for years to pay his annual visit to this charming resort. In the summer of 1876, however, an incident befell him which changed the current not only of his thoughts, but of his customary sequences. He passed a month in the Upper Engadine and encountered at Saint Moritz a charming young girl. To this little person he began to pay, on the spot, particular attention: she struck him as exactly the household angel he had long been looking for. He was never precipitate, he was nothing if not discreet, so he forbore for the present to declare his passion; but it seemed to him when they parted--the young lady to go down into Italy and her admirer to proceed to Geneva, where he was under bonds to join other friends--that he should be romantically wretched if he were not to see her again. The simplest way to do so was to go in the autumn to Rome, where Miss Osmond was domiciled with her family. Mr. Rosier started on his pilgrimage to the Italian capital and reached it on the first of November. It was a pleasant thing to do, but for the young man there was a strain of the heroic in the enterprise. He might expose himself, unseasoned, to the poison of the Roman air, which in November lay, notoriously, much in wait. Fortune, however, favours the brave; and this adventurer, who took three grains of quinine a day, had at the end of a month no cause to deplore his temerity. He had made to a certain extent good use of his time; he had devoted it in vain to finding a flaw in Pansy Osmond's composition. She was admirably finished; she had had the last touch; she was really a consummate piece. He thought of her in amorous meditation a good deal as he might have thought of a Dresden-china shepherdess. Miss Osmond, indeed, in the bloom of her juvenility, had a hint of the rococo which Rosier, whose taste was predominantly for that manner, could not fail to appreciate. That he esteemed the productions of comparatively frivolous periods would have been apparent from the attention he bestowed upon Madame Merle's drawing-room, which, although furnished with specimens of every style, was especially rich in articles of the last two centuries. He had immediately put a glass into one eye and looked round; and then "By Jove, she has some jolly good things!" he had yearningly murmured. The room was small and densely filled with furniture; it gave an impression of faded silk and little statuettes which might totter if one moved. Rosier got up and wandered about with his careful tread, bending over the tables charged with knick-knacks and the cushions embossed with princely arms. When Madame Merle came in she found him standing before the fireplace with his nose very close to the great lace flounce attached to the damask cover of the mantel. He had lifted it delicately, as if he were smelling it. "It's old Venetian," she said; "it's rather good." "It's too good for this; you ought to wear it." "They tell me you have some better in Paris, in the same situation." "Ah, but I can't wear mine," smiled the visitor. "I don't see why you shouldn't! I've better lace than that to wear." His eyes wandered, lingeringly, round the room again. "You've some very good things." "Yes, but I hate them." "Do you want to get rid of them?" the young man quickly asked. "No, it's good to have something to hate: one works it off!" "I love my things," said Mr. Rosier as he sat there flushed with all his recognitions. "But it's not about them, nor about yours, that I came to talk to you." He paused a moment and then, with greater softness: "I care more for Miss Osmond than for all the bibelots in Europe!" Madame Merle opened wide eyes. "Did you come to tell me that?" "I came to ask your advice." 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." "Why not, if he's in a difficult position? That's often the case with a man in love. I've been in love before, and I know. But never so much as this time--really never so much. I should like particularly to know what you think of my prospects. I'm afraid that for Mr. Osmond I'm not--well, a real collector's piece." "Do you wish me to intercede?" Madame Merle asked with her fine arms folded and her handsome mouth drawn up to the left. "If you could say a good word for me I should be greatly obliged. There will be no use in my troubling Miss Osmond unless I have good reason to believe her father will consent." "You're very considerate; that's in your favour. But you assume in rather an off-hand way that I think you a prize." "You've been very kind to me," said the young man. "That's why I came." "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. But he looked, in spite of it, literally apprehensive and consistently strenuous. "Ah, I thought you liked me for myself!" "I like you very much; but, if you please, we won't analyse. Pardon me if I seem patronising, but I think you a perfect little gentleman. I must tell you, however, that I've not the marrying of Pansy Osmond." "I didn't suppose that. But you've seemed to me intimate with her family, and I thought you might have influence." Madame Merle considered. "Whom do you call her family?" "Why, her father; and--how do you say it in English?--her belle-mere." "Mr. Osmond's her father, certainly; but his wife can scarcely be termed a member of her family. Mrs. Osmond has nothing to do with marrying her." "I'm sorry for that," said Rosier with an amiable sigh of good faith. "I think Mrs. Osmond would favour me." "Very likely--if her husband doesn't." He raised his eyebrows. "Does she take the opposite line from him?" "In everything. They think quite differently." "Well," said Rosier, "I'm sorry for that; but it's none of my business. She's very fond of Pansy." "Yes, she's very fond of Pansy." "And Pansy has a great affection for her. She has told me how she loves her as if she were her own mother." "You must, after all, have had some very intimate talk with the poor child," said Madame Merle. "Have you declared your sentiments?" "Never!" cried Rosier, lifting his neatly-gloved hand. "Never till I've assured myself of those of the parents." "You always wait for that? You've excellent principles; you observe the proprieties." "I think you're laughing at me," the young man murmured, dropping back in his chair and feeling his small moustache. "I didn't expect that of you, Madame Merle." She shook her head calmly, like a person who saw things as she saw them. "You don't do me justice. I think your conduct in excellent taste and the best you could adopt. Yes, that's what I think." "I wouldn't agitate her--only to agitate her; I love her too much for that," said Ned Rosier. "I'm glad, after all, that you've told me," Madame Merle went on. "Leave it to me a little; I think I can help you." "I said you were the person to come to!" her visitor cried with prompt elation. "You were very clever," Madame Merle returned more dryly. "When I say I can help you I mean once assuming your cause to be good. Let us think a little if it is." "I'm awfully decent, you know," said Rosier earnestly. "I won't say I've no faults, but I'll say I've no vices." "All that's negative, and it always depends, also, on what people call vices. What's the positive side? What's the virtuous? What have you got besides your Spanish lace and your Dresden teacups?" "I've a comfortable little fortune--about forty thousand francs a year. With the talent I have for arranging, we can live beautifully on such an income." "Beautifully, no. Sufficiently, yes. Even that depends on where you live." "Well, in Paris. I would undertake it in Paris." Madame Merle's mouth rose to the left. "It wouldn't be famous; you'd have to make use of the teacups, and they'd get broken." "We don't want to be famous. If Miss Osmond should have everything pretty it would be enough. When one's as pretty as she one can afford--well, quite cheap faience. She ought never to wear anything but muslin--without the sprig," said Rosier reflectively. "Wouldn't you even allow her the sprig? She'd be much obliged to you at any rate for that theory." "It's the correct one, I assure you; and I'm sure she'd enter into it. She understands all that; that's why I love her." "She's a very good little girl, and most tidy--also extremely graceful. But her father, to the best of my belief, can give her nothing." Rosier scarce demurred. "I don't in the least desire that he should. But I may remark, all the same, that he lives like a rich man." "The money's his wife's; she brought him a large fortune." "Mrs. Osmond then is very fond of her stepdaughter; she may do something." "For a love-sick swain you have your eyes about you!" Madame Merle exclaimed with a laugh. "I esteem a dot very much. I can do without it, but I esteem it." "Mrs. Osmond," Madame Merle went on, "will probably prefer to keep her money for her own children." "Her own children? Surely she has none." "She may have yet. She had a poor little boy, who died two years ago, six months after his birth. Others therefore may come." "I hope they will, if it will make her happy. She's a splendid woman." Madame Merle failed to burst into speech. "Ah, about her there's much to be said. Splendid as you like! We've not exactly made out that you're a parti. The absence of vices is hardly a source of income. "Pardon me, I think it may be," said Rosier quite lucidly. "You'll be a touching couple, living on your innocence!" "I think you underrate me." "You're not so innocent as that? Seriously," said Madame Merle, "of course forty thousand francs a year and a nice character are a combination to be considered. I don't say it's to be jumped at, but there might be a worse offer. Mr. Osmond, however, will probably incline to believe he can do better." "HE can do so perhaps; but what can his daughter do? She can't do better than marry the man she loves. For she does, you know," Rosier added eagerly. "She does--I know it." "Ah," cried the young man, "I said you were the person to come to." "But I don't know how you know it, if you haven't asked her," Madame Merle went on. "In such a case there's no need of asking and telling; as you say, we're an innocent couple. How did YOU know it?" "I who am not innocent? By being very crafty. Leave it to me; I'll find out for you." Rosier got up and stood smoothing his hat. "You say that rather coldly. Don't simply find out how it is, but try to make it as it should be." "I'll do my best. I'll try to make the most of your advantages." "Thank you so very much. Meanwhile then I'll say a word to Mrs. Osmond." "Gardez-vous-en bien!" And Madame Merle was on her feet. "Don't set her going, or you'll spoil everything." Rosier gazed into his hat; he wondered whether his hostess HAD been after all the right person to come to. "I don't think I understand you. I'm an old friend of Mrs. Osmond, and I think she would like me to succeed." "Be an old friend as much as you like; the more old friends she has the better, for she doesn't get on very well with some of her new. But don't for the present try to make her take up the cudgels for you. Her husband may have other views, and, as a person who wishes her well, I advise you not to multiply points of difference between them." Poor Rosier's face assumed an expression of alarm; a suit for the hand of Pansy Osmond was even a more complicated business than his taste for proper transitions had allowed. But the extreme good sense which he concealed under a surface suggesting that of a careful owner's "best set" came to his assistance. "I don't see that I'm bound to consider Mr. Osmond so very much!" he exclaimed. "No, but you should consider HER. You say you're an old friend. Would you make her suffer?" "Not for the world." "Then be very careful, and let the matter alone till I've taken a few soundings." "Let the matter alone, dear Madame Merle? Remember that I'm in love." "Oh, you won't burn up! Why did you come to me, if you're not to heed what I say?" "You're very kind; I'll be very good," the young man promised. "But I'm afraid Mr. Osmond's pretty hard," he added in his mild voice as he went to the door. Madame Merle gave a short laugh. "It has been said before. But his wife isn't easy either." "Ah, she's a splendid woman!" Ned Rosier repeated, for departure. He resolved that his conduct should be worthy of an aspirant who was already a model of discretion; but he saw nothing in any pledge he had given Madame Merle that made it improper he should keep himself in spirits by an occasional visit to Miss Osmond's home. He reflected constantly on what his adviser had said to him, and turned over in his mind the impression of her rather circumspect tone. He had gone to her de confiance, as they put it in Paris; but it was possible he had been precipitate. He found difficulty in thinking of himself as rash--he had incurred this reproach so rarely; but it certainly was true that he had known Madame Merle only for the last month, and that his thinking her a delightful woman was not, when one came to look into it, a reason for assuming that she would be eager to push Pansy Osmond into his arms, gracefully arranged as these members might be to receive her. She had indeed shown him benevolence, and she was a person of consideration among the girl's people, where she had a rather striking appearance (Rosier had more than once wondered how she managed it) of being intimate without being familiar. But possibly he had exaggerated these advantages. There was no particular reason why she should take trouble for him; a charming woman was charming to every one, and Rosier felt rather a fool when he thought of his having appealed to her on the ground that she had distinguished him. Very likely--though she had appeared to say it in joke--she was really only thinking of his bibelots. Had it come into her head that he might offer her two or three of the gems of his collection? If she would only help him to marry Miss Osmond he would present her with his whole museum. He could hardly say so to her outright; it would seem too gross a bribe. But he should like her to believe it. It was with these thoughts that he went again to Mrs. Osmond's, Mrs. Osmond having an "evening"--she had taken the Thursday of each week--when his presence could be accounted for on general principles of civility. The object of Mr. Rosier's well-regulated affection dwelt in a high house in the very heart of Rome; a dark and massive structure overlooking a sunny piazzetta in the neighbourhood of the Farnese Palace. In a palace, too, little Pansy lived--a palace by Roman measure, but a dungeon to poor Rosier's apprehensive mind. It seemed to him of evil omen that the young lady he wished to marry, and whose fastidious father he doubted of his ability to conciliate, should be immured in a kind of domestic fortress, a pile which bore a stern old Roman name, which smelt of historic deeds, of crime and craft and violence, which was mentioned in "Murray" and visited by tourists who looked, on a vague survey, disappointed and depressed, and which had frescoes by Caravaggio in the piano nobile and a row of mutilated statues and dusty urns in the wide, nobly-arched loggia overhanging the damp court where a fountain gushed out of a mossy niche. In a less preoccupied frame of mind he could have done justice to the Palazzo Roccanera; he could have entered into the sentiment of Mrs. Osmond, who had once told him that on settling themselves in Rome she and her husband had chosen this habitation for the love of local colour. It had local colour enough, and though he knew less about architecture than about Limoges enamels he could see that the proportions of the windows and even the details of the cornice had quite the grand air. But Rosier was haunted by the conviction that at picturesque periods young girls had been shut up there to keep them from their true loves, and then, under the threat of being thrown into convents, had been forced into unholy marriages. There was one point, however, to which he always did justice when once he found himself in Mrs. Osmond's warm, rich-looking reception-rooms, which were on the second floor. He acknowledged that these people were very strong in "good things." It was a taste of Osmond's own--not at all of hers; this she had told him the first time he came to the house, when, after asking himself for a quarter of an hour whether they had even better "French" than he in Paris, he was obliged on the spot to admit that they had, very much, and vanquished his envy, as a gentleman should, to the point of expressing to his hostess his pure admiration of her treasures. He learned from Mrs. Osmond that her husband had made a large collection before their marriage and that, though he had annexed a number of fine pieces within the last three years, he had achieved his greatest finds at a time when he had not the advantage of her advice. Rosier interpreted this information according to principles of his own. For "advice" read "cash," he said to himself; and the fact that Gilbert Osmond had landed his highest prizes during his impecunious season confirmed his most cherished doctrine--the doctrine that a collector may freely be poor if he be only patient. In general, when Rosier presented himself on a Thursday evening, his first recognition was for the walls of the saloon; there were three or four objects his eyes really yearned for. But after his talk with Madame Merle he felt the extreme seriousness of his position; and now, when he came in, he looked about for the daughter of the house with such eagerness as might be permitted a gentleman whose smile, as he crossed a threshold, always took everything comfortable for granted.

Many years have passed once Chapter 36 opens. It is an interesting technical choice on the part of James to begin this second part of his novel through the third-person point of view of Edward Rosier. Edward is not exactly an admirable character, and the narrator points out that his vision of Pansy is inaccurate. He also seems to resemble Osmond in subtle ways: they are both collectors, and they both have a habit of comparing persons of value to objects of value. He also believes that his own taste is quite accurately the only aesthetic standard - although it differs from Osmond's. In other words, his perspective is certainly not characterized by the perspicacity of others. Why then does James choose to introduce the story through his eyes? One answer might be that Edward is an example of James' technique of the "ficelle" - a character who is two-dimensional and is used merely to move the action of the story along. It is James' way of economically summarizing what the relationship between Osmond and Isabel has turned out to be. As James once famously said, "Really, universally, relations stop nowhere, and the exquisite problem of the artist is eternally but to draw, by a geometry of his own, the circle within which they shall happily appear to do so" . It is not until Chapter 40 that we get a peek into Isabel's world. Instead, Ralph's analysis in Chapter 39 of the situation paints a bleak picture for us. Ralph still believes Osmond is selfish and vulgar, and he believes that he has reduced Isabel to the function of being a "representative" of his own lack of values. It is interesting to pause over what is meant by an "intrinsic value" as opposed to Osmond's true values. Osmond cares what other people think of him, by Ralph's theory -- he cares how he appears to the world. He cares about his reputation and about having the means to show himself off in the world. But, the question is: does anyone else have an intrinsic value in this novel? Isabel is valuable, as James has explained in the preface, because others think she is interesting. This too is a value gained because of the opinion of others. Furthermore, a comparison can be made between Henry James as the author and Gilbert Osmond as the manipulative husband: Henry James also enjoyed financial success from "using" Isabel Archer to represent his own ideas. What is the intrinsic value of the novel itself? Is it supposed to be a representation of the author's ideas, or is it valuable for some other reason? This question is being posed in a meta-fictional sense. Can we really detach the idea of "intrinsic value" from values for others -- isn't value, after all, a social phenomenon?

analysis

Pansy was not in the first of the rooms, a large apartment with a concave ceiling and walls covered with old red damask; it was here Mrs. Osmond usually sat--though she was not in her most customary place to-night--and that a circle of more especial intimates gathered about the fire. The room was flushed with subdued, diffused brightness; it contained the larger things and--almost always--an odour of flowers. Pansy on this occasion was presumably in the next of the series, the resort of younger visitors, where tea was served. Osmond stood before the chimney, leaning back with his hands behind him; he had one foot up and was warming the sole. Half a dozen persons, scattered near him, were talking together; but he was not in the conversation; his eyes had an expression, frequent with them, that seemed to represent them as engaged with objects more worth their while than the appearances actually thrust upon them. Rosier, coming in unannounced, failed to attract his attention; but the young man, who was very punctilious, though he was even exceptionally conscious that it was the wife, not the husband, he had come to see, went up to shake hands with him. Osmond put out his left hand, without changing his attitude. "How d'ye do? My wife's somewhere about." "Never fear; I shall find her," said Rosier cheerfully. Osmond, however, took him in; he had never in his life felt himself so efficiently looked at. "Madame Merle has told him, and he doesn't like it," he privately reasoned. He had hoped Madame Merle would be there, but she was not in sight; perhaps she was in one of the other rooms or would come later. He had never especially delighted in Gilbert Osmond, having a fancy he gave himself airs. But Rosier was not quickly resentful, and where politeness was concerned had ever a strong need of being quite in the right. He looked round him and smiled, all without help, and then in a moment, "I saw a jolly good piece of Capo di Monte to-day," he said. Osmond answered nothing at first; but presently, while he warmed his boot-sole, "I don't care a fig for Capo di Monte!" he returned. "I hope you're not losing your interest?" "In old pots and plates? Yes, I'm losing my interest." Rosier for an instant forgot the delicacy of his position. "You're not thinking of parting with a--a piece or two?" "No, I'm not thinking of parting with anything at all, Mr. Rosier," said Osmond, with his eyes still on the eyes of his visitor. "Ah, you want to keep, but not to add," Rosier remarked brightly. "Exactly. I've nothing I wish to match." Poor Rosier was aware he had blushed; he was distressed at his want of assurance. "Ah, well, I have!" was all he could murmur; and he knew his murmur was partly lost as he turned away. He took his course to the adjoining room and met Mrs. Osmond coming out of the deep doorway. She was dressed in black velvet; she looked high and splendid, as he had said, and yet oh so radiantly gentle! We know what Mr. Rosier thought of her and the terms in which, to Madame Merle, he had expressed his admiration. Like his appreciation of her dear little stepdaughter it was based partly on his eye for decorative character, his instinct for authenticity; but also on a sense for uncatalogued values, for that secret of a "lustre" beyond any recorded losing or rediscovering, which his devotion to brittle wares had still not disqualified him to recognise. Mrs. Osmond, at present, might well have gratified such tastes. The years had touched her only to enrich her; the flower of her youth had not faded, it only hung more quietly on its stem. She had lost something of that quick eagerness to which her husband had privately taken exception--she had more the air of being able to wait. Now, at all events, framed in the gilded doorway, she struck our young man as the picture of a gracious lady. "You see I'm very regular," he said. "But who should be if I'm not?" "Yes, I've known you longer than any one here. But we mustn't indulge in tender reminiscences. I want to introduce you to a young lady." "Ah, please, what young lady?" Rosier was immensely obliging; but this was not what he had come for. "She sits there by the fire in pink and has no one to speak to." Rosier hesitated a moment. "Can't Mr. Osmond speak to her? He's within six feet of her." Mrs. Osmond also hesitated. "She's not very lively, and he doesn't like dull people." "But she's good enough for me? Ah now, that's hard!" "I only mean that you've ideas for two. And then you're so obliging." "No, he's not--to me." And Mrs. Osmond vaguely smiled. "That's a sign he should be doubly so to other women. "So I tell him," she said, still smiling. "You see I want some tea," Rosier went on, looking wistfully beyond. "That's perfect. Go and give some to my young lady." "Very good; but after that I'll abandon her to her fate. The simple truth is I'm dying to have a little talk with Miss Osmond." "Ah," said Isabel, turning away, "I can't help you there!" Five minutes later, while he handed a tea-cup to the damsel in pink, whom he had conducted into the other room, he wondered whether, in making to Mrs. Osmond the profession I have just quoted, he had broken the spirit of his promise to Madame Merle. Such a question was capable of occupying this young man's mind for a considerable time. At last, however, he became--comparatively speaking--reckless; he cared little what promises he might break. The fate to which he had threatened to abandon the damsel in pink proved to be none so terrible; for Pansy Osmond, who had given him the tea for his companion--Pansy was as fond as ever of making tea--presently came and talked to her. Into this mild colloquy Edward Rosier entered little; he sat by moodily, watching his small sweetheart. If we look at her now through his eyes we shall at first not see much to remind us of the obedient little girl who, at Florence, three years before, was sent to walk short distances in the Cascine while her father and Miss Archer talked together of matters sacred to elder people. But after a moment we shall perceive that if at nineteen Pansy has become a young lady she doesn't really fill out the part; that if she has grown very pretty she lacks in a deplorable degree the quality known and esteemed in the appearance of females as style; and that if she is dressed with great freshness she wears her smart attire with an undisguised appearance of saving it--very much as if it were lent her for the occasion. Edward Rosier, it would seem, would have been just the man to note these defects; and in point of fact there was not a quality of this young lady, of any sort, that he had not noted. Only he called her qualities by names of his own--some of which indeed were happy enough. "No, she's unique--she's absolutely unique," he used to say to himself; and you may be sure that not for an instant would he have admitted to you that she was wanting in style. Style? Why, she had the style of a little princess; if you couldn't see it you had no eye. It was not modern, it was not conscious, it would produce no impression in Broadway; the small, serious damsel, in her stiff little dress, only looked like an Infanta of Velasquez. This was enough for Edward Rosier, who thought her delightfully old-fashioned. Her anxious eyes, her charming lips, her slip of a figure, were as touching as a childish prayer. He had now an acute desire to know just to what point she liked him--a desire which made him fidget as he sat in his chair. It made him feel hot, so that he had to pat his forehead with his handkerchief; he had never been so uncomfortable. She was such a perfect jeune fille, and one couldn't make of a jeune fille the enquiry requisite for throwing light on such a point. A jeune fille was what Rosier had always dreamed of--a jeune fille who should yet not be French, for he had felt that this nationality would complicate the question. He was sure Pansy had never looked at a newspaper and that, in the way of novels, if she had read Sir Walter Scott it was the very most. An American jeune fille--what could be better than that? She would be frank and gay, and yet would not have walked alone, nor have received letters from men, nor have been taken to the theatre to see the comedy of manners. Rosier could not deny that, as the matter stood, it would be a breach of hospitality to appeal directly to this unsophisticated creature; but he was now in imminent danger of asking himself if hospitality were the most sacred thing in the world. Was not the sentiment that he entertained for Miss Osmond of infinitely greater importance? Of greater importance to him--yes; but not probably to the master of the house. There was one comfort; even if this gentleman had been placed on his guard by Madame Merle he would not have extended the warning to Pansy; it would not have been part of his policy to let her know that a prepossessing young man was in love with her. But he WAS in love with her, the prepossessing young man; and all these restrictions of circumstance had ended by irritating him. What had Gilbert Osmond meant by giving him two fingers of his left hand? If Osmond was rude, surely he himself might be bold. He felt extremely bold after the dull girl in so vain a disguise of rose-colour had responded to the call of her mother, who came in to say, with a significant simper at Rosier, that she must carry her off to other triumphs. The mother and daughter departed together, and now it depended only upon him that he should be virtually alone with Pansy. He had never been alone with her before; he had never been alone with a jeune fille. It was a great moment; poor Rosier began to pat his forehead again. There was another room beyond the one in which they stood--a small room that had been thrown open and lighted, but that, the company not being numerous, had remained empty all the evening. It was empty yet; it was upholstered in pale yellow; there were several lamps; through the open door it looked the very temple of authorised love. Rosier gazed a moment through this aperture; he was afraid that Pansy would run away, and felt almost capable of stretching out a hand to detain her. But she lingered where the other maiden had left them, making no motion to join a knot of visitors on the far side of the room. For a little it occurred to him that she was frightened--too frightened perhaps to move; but a second glance assured him she was not, and he then reflected that she was too innocent indeed for that. After a supreme hesitation he asked her if he might go and look at the yellow room, which seemed so attractive yet so virginal. He had been there already with Osmond, to inspect the furniture, which was of the First French Empire, and especially to admire the clock (which he didn't really admire), an immense classic structure of that period. He therefore felt that he had now begun to manoeuvre. "Certainly, you may go," said Pansy; "and if you like I'll show you." She was not in the least frightened. "That's just what I hoped you'd say; you're so very kind," Rosier murmured. They went in together; Rosier really thought the room very ugly, and it seemed cold. The same idea appeared to have struck Pansy. "It's not for winter evenings; it's more for summer," she said. "It's papa's taste; he has so much." He had a good deal, Rosier thought; but some of it was very bad. He looked about him; he hardly knew what to say in such a situation. "Doesn't Mrs. Osmond care how her rooms are done? Has she no taste?" he asked. "Oh yes, a great deal; but it's more for literature," said Pansy--"and for conversation. But papa cares also for those things. I think he knows everything." Rosier was silent a little. "There's one thing I'm sure he knows!" he broke out presently. "He knows that when I come here it's, with all respect to him, with all respect to Mrs. Osmond, who's so charming--it's really," said the young man, "to see you!" "To see me?" And Pansy raised her vaguely troubled eyes. "To see you; that's what I come for," Rosier repeated, feeling the intoxication of a rupture with authority. Pansy stood looking at him, simply, intently, openly; a blush was not needed to make her face more modest. "I thought it was for that." "And it was not disagreeable to you?" "I couldn't tell; I didn't know. You never told me," said Pansy. "I was afraid of offending you." "You don't offend me," the young girl murmured, smiling as if an angel had kissed her. "You like me then, Pansy?" Rosier asked very gently, feeling very happy. "Yes--I like you." They had walked to the chimney-piece where the big cold Empire clock was perched; they were well within the room and beyond observation from without. The tone in which she had said these four words seemed to him the very breath of nature, and his only answer could be to take her hand and hold it a moment. Then he raised it to his lips. She submitted, still with her pure, trusting smile, in which there was something ineffably passive. She liked him--she had liked him all the while; now anything might happen! She was ready--she had been ready always, waiting for him to speak. If he had not spoken she would have waited for ever; but when the word came she dropped like the peach from the shaken tree. Rosier felt that if he should draw her toward him and hold her to his heart she would submit without a murmur, would rest there without a question. It was true that this would be a rash experiment in a yellow Empire salottino. She had known it was for her he came, and yet like what a perfect little lady she had carried it off! "You're very dear to me," he murmured, trying to believe that there was after all such a thing as hospitality. She looked a moment at her hand, where he had kissed it. "Did you say papa knows?" "You told me just now he knows everything." "I think you must make sure," said Pansy. "Ah, my dear, when once I'm sure of YOU!" Rosier murmured in her ear; whereupon she turned back to the other rooms with a little air of consistency which seemed to imply that their appeal should be immediate. The other rooms meanwhile had become conscious of the arrival of Madame Merle, who, wherever she went, produced an impression when she entered. How she did it the most attentive spectator could not have told you, for she neither spoke loud, nor laughed profusely, nor moved rapidly, nor dressed with splendour, nor appealed in any appreciable manner to the audience. Large, fair, smiling, serene, there was something in her very tranquillity that diffused itself, and when people looked round it was because of a sudden quiet. On this occasion she had done the quietest thing she could do; after embracing Mrs. Osmond, which was more striking, she had sat down on a small sofa to commune with the master of the house. There was a brief exchange of commonplaces between these two--they always paid, in public, a certain formal tribute to the commonplace--and then Madame Merle, whose eyes had been wandering, asked if little Mr. Rosier had come this evening. "He came nearly an hour ago--but he has disappeared," Osmond said. "And where's Pansy?" "In the other room. There are several people there." "He's probably among them," said Madame Merle. "Do you wish to see him?" Osmond asked in a provokingly pointless tone. Madame Merle looked at him a moment; she knew each of his tones to the eighth of a note. "Yes, I should like to say to him that I've told you what he wants, and that it interests you but feebly." "Don't tell him that. He'll try to interest me more--which is exactly what I don't want. Tell him I hate his proposal." "But you don't hate it." "It doesn't signify; I don't love it. I let him see that, myself, this evening; I was rude to him on purpose. That sort of thing's a great bore. There's no hurry." "I'll tell him that you'll take time and think it over." "No, don't do that. He'll hang on." "If I discourage him he'll do the same." "Yes, but in the one case he'll try to talk and explain--which would be exceedingly tiresome. In the other he'll probably hold his tongue and go in for some deeper game. That will leave me quiet. I hate talking with a donkey." "Is that what you call poor Mr. Rosier?" "Oh, he's a nuisance--with his eternal majolica." Madame Merle dropped her eyes; she had a faint smile. "He's a gentleman, he has a charming temper; and, after all, an income of forty thousand francs!" "It's misery--'genteel' misery," Osmond broke in. "It's not what I've dreamed of for Pansy." "Very good then. He has promised me not to speak to her." "Do you believe him?" Osmond asked absentmindedly. "Perfectly. Pansy has thought a great deal about him; but I don't suppose you consider that that matters." "I don't consider it matters at all; but neither do I believe she has thought of him." "That opinion's more convenient," said Madame Merle quietly. "Has she told you she's in love with him?" "For what do you take her? And for what do you take me?" Madame Merle added in a moment. Osmond had raised his foot and was resting his slim ankle on the other knee; he clasped his ankle in his hand familiarly--his long, fine forefinger and thumb could make a ring for it--and gazed a while before him. "This kind of thing doesn't find me unprepared. It's what I educated her for. It was all for this--that when such a case should come up she should do what I prefer." "I'm not afraid that she'll not do it." "Well then, where's the hitch?" "I don't see any. But, all the same, I recommend you not to get rid of Mr. Rosier. Keep him on hand; he may be useful." "I can't keep him. Keep him yourself." "Very good; I'll put him into a corner and allow him so much a day." Madame Merle had, for the most part, while they talked, been glancing about her; it was her habit in this situation, just as it was her habit to interpose a good many blank-looking pauses. A long drop followed the last words I have quoted; and before it had ended she saw Pansy come out of the adjoining room, followed by Edward Rosier. The girl advanced a few steps and then stopped and stood looking at Madame Merle and at her father. "He has spoken to her," Madame Merle went on to Osmond. Her companion never turned his head. "So much for your belief in his promises. He ought to be horsewhipped." "He intends to confess, poor little man!" Osmond got up; he had now taken a sharp look at his daughter. "It doesn't matter," he murmured, turning away. Pansy after a moment came up to Madame Merle with her little manner of unfamiliar politeness. This lady's reception of her was not more intimate; she simply, as she rose from the sofa, gave her a friendly smile. "You're very late," the young creature gently said. "My dear child, I'm never later than I intend to be." Madame Merle had not got up to be gracious to Pansy; she moved toward Edward Rosier. He came to meet her and, very quickly, as if to get it off his mind, "I've spoken to her!" he whispered. "I know it, Mr. Rosier." "Did she tell you?" "Yes, she told me. Behave properly for the rest of the evening, and come and see me to-morrow at a quarter past five." She was severe, and in the manner in which she turned her back to him there was a degree of contempt which caused him to mutter a decent imprecation. He had no intention of speaking to Osmond; it was neither the time nor the place. But he instinctively wandered toward Isabel, who sat talking with an old lady. He sat down on the other side of her; the old lady was Italian, and Rosier took for granted she understood no English. "You said just now you wouldn't help me," he began to Mrs. Osmond. "Perhaps you'll feel differently when you know--when you know--!" Isabel met his hesitation. "When I know what?" "That she's all right." "What do you mean by that?" "Well, that we've come to an understanding." "She's all wrong," said Isabel. "It won't do." Poor Rosier gazed at her half-pleadingly, half-angrily; a sudden flush testified to his sense of injury. "I've never been treated so," he said. "What is there against me, after all? That's not the way I'm usually considered. I could have married twenty times." "It's a pity you didn't. I don't mean twenty times, but once, comfortably," Isabel added, smiling kindly. "You're not rich enough for Pansy." "She doesn't care a straw for one's money." "No, but her father does." "Ah yes, he has proved that!" cried the young man. Isabel got up, turning away from him, leaving her old lady without ceremony; and he occupied himself for the next ten minutes in pretending to look at Gilbert Osmond's collection of miniatures, which were neatly arranged on a series of small velvet screens. But he looked without seeing; his cheek burned; he was too full of his sense of injury. It was certain that he had never been treated that way before; he was not used to being thought not good enough. He knew how good he was, and if such a fallacy had not been so pernicious he could have laughed at it. He searched again for Pansy, but she had disappeared, and his main desire was now to get out of the house. Before doing so he spoke once more to Isabel; it was not agreeable to him to reflect that he had just said a rude thing to her--the only point that would now justify a low view of him. "I referred to Mr. Osmond as I shouldn't have done, a while ago," he began. "But you must remember my situation." "I don't remember what you said," she answered coldly. "Ah, you're offended, and now you'll never help me." She was silent an instant, and then with a change of tone: "It's not that I won't; I simply can't!" Her manner was almost passionate. "If you COULD, just a little, I'd never again speak of your husband save as an angel." "The inducement's great," said Isabel gravely--inscrutably, as he afterwards, to himself, called it; and she gave him, straight in the eyes, a look which was also inscrutable. It made him remember somehow that he had known her as a child; and yet it was keener than he liked, and he took himself off.

Edward Rosier now stands in the palace where Isabel and Osmond live at some sort of social gathering. Osmond greets him, saying his wife will be out shortly. When we see Isabel through Edward's eyes, it seems that she has changed very little, imparting still that secret "lustre" of a valuable item. Edward Rosier lets Isabel know that he would like to see Pansy. When we see Pansy through Edward's eyes, the narrator tells us that while she is now nineteen years old, and that while she is pretty, she seems to lack style. She is dressed with "freshness" instead. Edward Rosier would have been inclined to notice these defects, the narrator tells us, if he had not already attributed named her qualities with ideas of his own -- he thinks she is absolutely unique. Mr. Rosier asks Pansy to show him the yellow room, and she agrees. He gets her to admit that she likes him, as she shows him her father's things. Pansy asks if Edward is sure that her father knows that he likes her; he retorts that her father is supposed to know everything. Madame Merle arrives and talks to Gilbert Osmond about Mr. Rosier: Merle considers telling Mr. Rosier that Osmond dislikes the proposal, and Osmond is annoyed at the thought that this will make Mr. Rosier insist. Merle advises Osmond to keep Mr. Rosier on hand, for he may have a use for him. Osmond does not understand this. Meanwhile Mr. Rosier speaks to Isabel. She tells him that he is not rich enough for Pansy, and he feels insulted. He has never been told that he is not good enough. She tells him Pansy's father cares about the money, and he hints that Osmond's love of money was apparent when he married Isabel

summary

Pansy was not in the first of the rooms, a large apartment with a concave ceiling and walls covered with old red damask; it was here Mrs. Osmond usually sat--though she was not in her most customary place to-night--and that a circle of more especial intimates gathered about the fire. The room was flushed with subdued, diffused brightness; it contained the larger things and--almost always--an odour of flowers. Pansy on this occasion was presumably in the next of the series, the resort of younger visitors, where tea was served. Osmond stood before the chimney, leaning back with his hands behind him; he had one foot up and was warming the sole. Half a dozen persons, scattered near him, were talking together; but he was not in the conversation; his eyes had an expression, frequent with them, that seemed to represent them as engaged with objects more worth their while than the appearances actually thrust upon them. Rosier, coming in unannounced, failed to attract his attention; but the young man, who was very punctilious, though he was even exceptionally conscious that it was the wife, not the husband, he had come to see, went up to shake hands with him. Osmond put out his left hand, without changing his attitude. "How d'ye do? My wife's somewhere about." "Never fear; I shall find her," said Rosier cheerfully. Osmond, however, took him in; he had never in his life felt himself so efficiently looked at. "Madame Merle has told him, and he doesn't like it," he privately reasoned. He had hoped Madame Merle would be there, but she was not in sight; perhaps she was in one of the other rooms or would come later. He had never especially delighted in Gilbert Osmond, having a fancy he gave himself airs. But Rosier was not quickly resentful, and where politeness was concerned had ever a strong need of being quite in the right. He looked round him and smiled, all without help, and then in a moment, "I saw a jolly good piece of Capo di Monte to-day," he said. Osmond answered nothing at first; but presently, while he warmed his boot-sole, "I don't care a fig for Capo di Monte!" he returned. "I hope you're not losing your interest?" "In old pots and plates? Yes, I'm losing my interest." Rosier for an instant forgot the delicacy of his position. "You're not thinking of parting with a--a piece or two?" "No, I'm not thinking of parting with anything at all, Mr. Rosier," said Osmond, with his eyes still on the eyes of his visitor. "Ah, you want to keep, but not to add," Rosier remarked brightly. "Exactly. I've nothing I wish to match." Poor Rosier was aware he had blushed; he was distressed at his want of assurance. "Ah, well, I have!" was all he could murmur; and he knew his murmur was partly lost as he turned away. He took his course to the adjoining room and met Mrs. Osmond coming out of the deep doorway. She was dressed in black velvet; she looked high and splendid, as he had said, and yet oh so radiantly gentle! We know what Mr. Rosier thought of her and the terms in which, to Madame Merle, he had expressed his admiration. Like his appreciation of her dear little stepdaughter it was based partly on his eye for decorative character, his instinct for authenticity; but also on a sense for uncatalogued values, for that secret of a "lustre" beyond any recorded losing or rediscovering, which his devotion to brittle wares had still not disqualified him to recognise. Mrs. Osmond, at present, might well have gratified such tastes. The years had touched her only to enrich her; the flower of her youth had not faded, it only hung more quietly on its stem. She had lost something of that quick eagerness to which her husband had privately taken exception--she had more the air of being able to wait. Now, at all events, framed in the gilded doorway, she struck our young man as the picture of a gracious lady. "You see I'm very regular," he said. "But who should be if I'm not?" "Yes, I've known you longer than any one here. But we mustn't indulge in tender reminiscences. I want to introduce you to a young lady." "Ah, please, what young lady?" Rosier was immensely obliging; but this was not what he had come for. "She sits there by the fire in pink and has no one to speak to." Rosier hesitated a moment. "Can't Mr. Osmond speak to her? He's within six feet of her." Mrs. Osmond also hesitated. "She's not very lively, and he doesn't like dull people." "But she's good enough for me? Ah now, that's hard!" "I only mean that you've ideas for two. And then you're so obliging." "No, he's not--to me." And Mrs. Osmond vaguely smiled. "That's a sign he should be doubly so to other women. "So I tell him," she said, still smiling. "You see I want some tea," Rosier went on, looking wistfully beyond. "That's perfect. Go and give some to my young lady." "Very good; but after that I'll abandon her to her fate. The simple truth is I'm dying to have a little talk with Miss Osmond." "Ah," said Isabel, turning away, "I can't help you there!" Five minutes later, while he handed a tea-cup to the damsel in pink, whom he had conducted into the other room, he wondered whether, in making to Mrs. Osmond the profession I have just quoted, he had broken the spirit of his promise to Madame Merle. Such a question was capable of occupying this young man's mind for a considerable time. At last, however, he became--comparatively speaking--reckless; he cared little what promises he might break. The fate to which he had threatened to abandon the damsel in pink proved to be none so terrible; for Pansy Osmond, who had given him the tea for his companion--Pansy was as fond as ever of making tea--presently came and talked to her. Into this mild colloquy Edward Rosier entered little; he sat by moodily, watching his small sweetheart. If we look at her now through his eyes we shall at first not see much to remind us of the obedient little girl who, at Florence, three years before, was sent to walk short distances in the Cascine while her father and Miss Archer talked together of matters sacred to elder people. But after a moment we shall perceive that if at nineteen Pansy has become a young lady she doesn't really fill out the part; that if she has grown very pretty she lacks in a deplorable degree the quality known and esteemed in the appearance of females as style; and that if she is dressed with great freshness she wears her smart attire with an undisguised appearance of saving it--very much as if it were lent her for the occasion. Edward Rosier, it would seem, would have been just the man to note these defects; and in point of fact there was not a quality of this young lady, of any sort, that he had not noted. Only he called her qualities by names of his own--some of which indeed were happy enough. "No, she's unique--she's absolutely unique," he used to say to himself; and you may be sure that not for an instant would he have admitted to you that she was wanting in style. Style? Why, she had the style of a little princess; if you couldn't see it you had no eye. It was not modern, it was not conscious, it would produce no impression in Broadway; the small, serious damsel, in her stiff little dress, only looked like an Infanta of Velasquez. This was enough for Edward Rosier, who thought her delightfully old-fashioned. Her anxious eyes, her charming lips, her slip of a figure, were as touching as a childish prayer. He had now an acute desire to know just to what point she liked him--a desire which made him fidget as he sat in his chair. It made him feel hot, so that he had to pat his forehead with his handkerchief; he had never been so uncomfortable. She was such a perfect jeune fille, and one couldn't make of a jeune fille the enquiry requisite for throwing light on such a point. A jeune fille was what Rosier had always dreamed of--a jeune fille who should yet not be French, for he had felt that this nationality would complicate the question. He was sure Pansy had never looked at a newspaper and that, in the way of novels, if she had read Sir Walter Scott it was the very most. An American jeune fille--what could be better than that? She would be frank and gay, and yet would not have walked alone, nor have received letters from men, nor have been taken to the theatre to see the comedy of manners. Rosier could not deny that, as the matter stood, it would be a breach of hospitality to appeal directly to this unsophisticated creature; but he was now in imminent danger of asking himself if hospitality were the most sacred thing in the world. Was not the sentiment that he entertained for Miss Osmond of infinitely greater importance? Of greater importance to him--yes; but not probably to the master of the house. There was one comfort; even if this gentleman had been placed on his guard by Madame Merle he would not have extended the warning to Pansy; it would not have been part of his policy to let her know that a prepossessing young man was in love with her. But he WAS in love with her, the prepossessing young man; and all these restrictions of circumstance had ended by irritating him. What had Gilbert Osmond meant by giving him two fingers of his left hand? If Osmond was rude, surely he himself might be bold. He felt extremely bold after the dull girl in so vain a disguise of rose-colour had responded to the call of her mother, who came in to say, with a significant simper at Rosier, that she must carry her off to other triumphs. The mother and daughter departed together, and now it depended only upon him that he should be virtually alone with Pansy. He had never been alone with her before; he had never been alone with a jeune fille. It was a great moment; poor Rosier began to pat his forehead again. There was another room beyond the one in which they stood--a small room that had been thrown open and lighted, but that, the company not being numerous, had remained empty all the evening. It was empty yet; it was upholstered in pale yellow; there were several lamps; through the open door it looked the very temple of authorised love. Rosier gazed a moment through this aperture; he was afraid that Pansy would run away, and felt almost capable of stretching out a hand to detain her. But she lingered where the other maiden had left them, making no motion to join a knot of visitors on the far side of the room. For a little it occurred to him that she was frightened--too frightened perhaps to move; but a second glance assured him she was not, and he then reflected that she was too innocent indeed for that. After a supreme hesitation he asked her if he might go and look at the yellow room, which seemed so attractive yet so virginal. He had been there already with Osmond, to inspect the furniture, which was of the First French Empire, and especially to admire the clock (which he didn't really admire), an immense classic structure of that period. He therefore felt that he had now begun to manoeuvre. "Certainly, you may go," said Pansy; "and if you like I'll show you." She was not in the least frightened. "That's just what I hoped you'd say; you're so very kind," Rosier murmured. They went in together; Rosier really thought the room very ugly, and it seemed cold. The same idea appeared to have struck Pansy. "It's not for winter evenings; it's more for summer," she said. "It's papa's taste; he has so much." He had a good deal, Rosier thought; but some of it was very bad. He looked about him; he hardly knew what to say in such a situation. "Doesn't Mrs. Osmond care how her rooms are done? Has she no taste?" he asked. "Oh yes, a great deal; but it's more for literature," said Pansy--"and for conversation. But papa cares also for those things. I think he knows everything." Rosier was silent a little. "There's one thing I'm sure he knows!" he broke out presently. "He knows that when I come here it's, with all respect to him, with all respect to Mrs. Osmond, who's so charming--it's really," said the young man, "to see you!" "To see me?" And Pansy raised her vaguely troubled eyes. "To see you; that's what I come for," Rosier repeated, feeling the intoxication of a rupture with authority. Pansy stood looking at him, simply, intently, openly; a blush was not needed to make her face more modest. "I thought it was for that." "And it was not disagreeable to you?" "I couldn't tell; I didn't know. You never told me," said Pansy. "I was afraid of offending you." "You don't offend me," the young girl murmured, smiling as if an angel had kissed her. "You like me then, Pansy?" Rosier asked very gently, feeling very happy. "Yes--I like you." They had walked to the chimney-piece where the big cold Empire clock was perched; they were well within the room and beyond observation from without. The tone in which she had said these four words seemed to him the very breath of nature, and his only answer could be to take her hand and hold it a moment. Then he raised it to his lips. She submitted, still with her pure, trusting smile, in which there was something ineffably passive. She liked him--she had liked him all the while; now anything might happen! She was ready--she had been ready always, waiting for him to speak. If he had not spoken she would have waited for ever; but when the word came she dropped like the peach from the shaken tree. Rosier felt that if he should draw her toward him and hold her to his heart she would submit without a murmur, would rest there without a question. It was true that this would be a rash experiment in a yellow Empire salottino. She had known it was for her he came, and yet like what a perfect little lady she had carried it off! "You're very dear to me," he murmured, trying to believe that there was after all such a thing as hospitality. She looked a moment at her hand, where he had kissed it. "Did you say papa knows?" "You told me just now he knows everything." "I think you must make sure," said Pansy. "Ah, my dear, when once I'm sure of YOU!" Rosier murmured in her ear; whereupon she turned back to the other rooms with a little air of consistency which seemed to imply that their appeal should be immediate. The other rooms meanwhile had become conscious of the arrival of Madame Merle, who, wherever she went, produced an impression when she entered. How she did it the most attentive spectator could not have told you, for she neither spoke loud, nor laughed profusely, nor moved rapidly, nor dressed with splendour, nor appealed in any appreciable manner to the audience. Large, fair, smiling, serene, there was something in her very tranquillity that diffused itself, and when people looked round it was because of a sudden quiet. On this occasion she had done the quietest thing she could do; after embracing Mrs. Osmond, which was more striking, she had sat down on a small sofa to commune with the master of the house. There was a brief exchange of commonplaces between these two--they always paid, in public, a certain formal tribute to the commonplace--and then Madame Merle, whose eyes had been wandering, asked if little Mr. Rosier had come this evening. "He came nearly an hour ago--but he has disappeared," Osmond said. "And where's Pansy?" "In the other room. There are several people there." "He's probably among them," said Madame Merle. "Do you wish to see him?" Osmond asked in a provokingly pointless tone. Madame Merle looked at him a moment; she knew each of his tones to the eighth of a note. "Yes, I should like to say to him that I've told you what he wants, and that it interests you but feebly." "Don't tell him that. He'll try to interest me more--which is exactly what I don't want. Tell him I hate his proposal." "But you don't hate it." "It doesn't signify; I don't love it. I let him see that, myself, this evening; I was rude to him on purpose. That sort of thing's a great bore. There's no hurry." "I'll tell him that you'll take time and think it over." "No, don't do that. He'll hang on." "If I discourage him he'll do the same." "Yes, but in the one case he'll try to talk and explain--which would be exceedingly tiresome. In the other he'll probably hold his tongue and go in for some deeper game. That will leave me quiet. I hate talking with a donkey." "Is that what you call poor Mr. Rosier?" "Oh, he's a nuisance--with his eternal majolica." Madame Merle dropped her eyes; she had a faint smile. "He's a gentleman, he has a charming temper; and, after all, an income of forty thousand francs!" "It's misery--'genteel' misery," Osmond broke in. "It's not what I've dreamed of for Pansy." "Very good then. He has promised me not to speak to her." "Do you believe him?" Osmond asked absentmindedly. "Perfectly. Pansy has thought a great deal about him; but I don't suppose you consider that that matters." "I don't consider it matters at all; but neither do I believe she has thought of him." "That opinion's more convenient," said Madame Merle quietly. "Has she told you she's in love with him?" "For what do you take her? And for what do you take me?" Madame Merle added in a moment. Osmond had raised his foot and was resting his slim ankle on the other knee; he clasped his ankle in his hand familiarly--his long, fine forefinger and thumb could make a ring for it--and gazed a while before him. "This kind of thing doesn't find me unprepared. It's what I educated her for. It was all for this--that when such a case should come up she should do what I prefer." "I'm not afraid that she'll not do it." "Well then, where's the hitch?" "I don't see any. But, all the same, I recommend you not to get rid of Mr. Rosier. Keep him on hand; he may be useful." "I can't keep him. Keep him yourself." "Very good; I'll put him into a corner and allow him so much a day." Madame Merle had, for the most part, while they talked, been glancing about her; it was her habit in this situation, just as it was her habit to interpose a good many blank-looking pauses. A long drop followed the last words I have quoted; and before it had ended she saw Pansy come out of the adjoining room, followed by Edward Rosier. The girl advanced a few steps and then stopped and stood looking at Madame Merle and at her father. "He has spoken to her," Madame Merle went on to Osmond. Her companion never turned his head. "So much for your belief in his promises. He ought to be horsewhipped." "He intends to confess, poor little man!" Osmond got up; he had now taken a sharp look at his daughter. "It doesn't matter," he murmured, turning away. Pansy after a moment came up to Madame Merle with her little manner of unfamiliar politeness. This lady's reception of her was not more intimate; she simply, as she rose from the sofa, gave her a friendly smile. "You're very late," the young creature gently said. "My dear child, I'm never later than I intend to be." Madame Merle had not got up to be gracious to Pansy; she moved toward Edward Rosier. He came to meet her and, very quickly, as if to get it off his mind, "I've spoken to her!" he whispered. "I know it, Mr. Rosier." "Did she tell you?" "Yes, she told me. Behave properly for the rest of the evening, and come and see me to-morrow at a quarter past five." She was severe, and in the manner in which she turned her back to him there was a degree of contempt which caused him to mutter a decent imprecation. He had no intention of speaking to Osmond; it was neither the time nor the place. But he instinctively wandered toward Isabel, who sat talking with an old lady. He sat down on the other side of her; the old lady was Italian, and Rosier took for granted she understood no English. "You said just now you wouldn't help me," he began to Mrs. Osmond. "Perhaps you'll feel differently when you know--when you know--!" Isabel met his hesitation. "When I know what?" "That she's all right." "What do you mean by that?" "Well, that we've come to an understanding." "She's all wrong," said Isabel. "It won't do." Poor Rosier gazed at her half-pleadingly, half-angrily; a sudden flush testified to his sense of injury. "I've never been treated so," he said. "What is there against me, after all? That's not the way I'm usually considered. I could have married twenty times." "It's a pity you didn't. I don't mean twenty times, but once, comfortably," Isabel added, smiling kindly. "You're not rich enough for Pansy." "She doesn't care a straw for one's money." "No, but her father does." "Ah yes, he has proved that!" cried the young man. Isabel got up, turning away from him, leaving her old lady without ceremony; and he occupied himself for the next ten minutes in pretending to look at Gilbert Osmond's collection of miniatures, which were neatly arranged on a series of small velvet screens. But he looked without seeing; his cheek burned; he was too full of his sense of injury. It was certain that he had never been treated that way before; he was not used to being thought not good enough. He knew how good he was, and if such a fallacy had not been so pernicious he could have laughed at it. He searched again for Pansy, but she had disappeared, and his main desire was now to get out of the house. Before doing so he spoke once more to Isabel; it was not agreeable to him to reflect that he had just said a rude thing to her--the only point that would now justify a low view of him. "I referred to Mr. Osmond as I shouldn't have done, a while ago," he began. "But you must remember my situation." "I don't remember what you said," she answered coldly. "Ah, you're offended, and now you'll never help me." She was silent an instant, and then with a change of tone: "It's not that I won't; I simply can't!" Her manner was almost passionate. "If you COULD, just a little, I'd never again speak of your husband save as an angel." "The inducement's great," said Isabel gravely--inscrutably, as he afterwards, to himself, called it; and she gave him, straight in the eyes, a look which was also inscrutable. It made him remember somehow that he had known her as a child; and yet it was keener than he liked, and he took himself off.

Many years have passed once Chapter 36 opens. It is an interesting technical choice on the part of James to begin this second part of his novel through the third-person point of view of Edward Rosier. Edward is not exactly an admirable character, and the narrator points out that his vision of Pansy is inaccurate. He also seems to resemble Osmond in subtle ways: they are both collectors, and they both have a habit of comparing persons of value to objects of value. He also believes that his own taste is quite accurately the only aesthetic standard - although it differs from Osmond's. In other words, his perspective is certainly not characterized by the perspicacity of others. Why then does James choose to introduce the story through his eyes? One answer might be that Edward is an example of James' technique of the "ficelle" - a character who is two-dimensional and is used merely to move the action of the story along. It is James' way of economically summarizing what the relationship between Osmond and Isabel has turned out to be. As James once famously said, "Really, universally, relations stop nowhere, and the exquisite problem of the artist is eternally but to draw, by a geometry of his own, the circle within which they shall happily appear to do so" . It is not until Chapter 40 that we get a peek into Isabel's world. Instead, Ralph's analysis in Chapter 39 of the situation paints a bleak picture for us. Ralph still believes Osmond is selfish and vulgar, and he believes that he has reduced Isabel to the function of being a "representative" of his own lack of values. It is interesting to pause over what is meant by an "intrinsic value" as opposed to Osmond's true values. Osmond cares what other people think of him, by Ralph's theory -- he cares how he appears to the world. He cares about his reputation and about having the means to show himself off in the world. But, the question is: does anyone else have an intrinsic value in this novel? Isabel is valuable, as James has explained in the preface, because others think she is interesting. This too is a value gained because of the opinion of others. Furthermore, a comparison can be made between Henry James as the author and Gilbert Osmond as the manipulative husband: Henry James also enjoyed financial success from "using" Isabel Archer to represent his own ideas. What is the intrinsic value of the novel itself? Is it supposed to be a representation of the author's ideas, or is it valuable for some other reason? This question is being posed in a meta-fictional sense. Can we really detach the idea of "intrinsic value" from values for others -- isn't value, after all, a social phenomenon?

analysis

He went to see Madame Merle on the morrow, and to his surprise she let him off rather easily. But she made him promise that he would stop there till something should have been decided. Mr. Osmond had had higher expectations; it was very true that as he had no intention of giving his daughter a portion such expectations were open to criticism or even, if one would, to ridicule. But she would advise Mr. Rosier not to take that tone; if he would possess his soul in patience he might arrive at his felicity. Mr. Osmond was not favourable to his suit, but it wouldn't be a miracle if he should gradually come round. Pansy would never defy her father, he might depend on that; so nothing was to be gained by precipitation. Mr. Osmond needed to accustom his mind to an offer of a sort that he had not hitherto entertained, and this result must come of itself--it was useless to try to force it. Rosier remarked that his own situation would be in the meanwhile the most uncomfortable in the world, and Madame Merle assured him that she felt for him. But, as she justly declared, one couldn't have everything one wanted; she had learned that lesson for herself. There would be no use in his writing to Gilbert Osmond, who had charged her to tell him as much. He wished the matter dropped for a few weeks and would himself write when he should have anything to communicate that it might please Mr. Rosier to hear. "He doesn't like your having spoken to Pansy, Ah, he doesn't like it at all," said Madame Merle. "I'm perfectly willing to give him a chance to tell me so!" "If you do that he'll tell you more than you care to hear. Go to the house, for the next month, as little as possible, and leave the rest to me." "As little as possible? Who's to measure the possibility?" "Let me measure it. Go on Thursday evenings with the rest of the world, but don't go at all at odd times, and don't fret about Pansy. I'll see that she understands everything. She's a calm little nature; she'll take it quietly." Edward Rosier fretted about Pansy a good deal, but he did as he was advised, and awaited another Thursday evening before returning to Palazzo Roccanera. There had been a party at dinner, so that though he went early the company was already tolerably numerous. Osmond, as usual, was in the first room, near the fire, staring straight at the door, so that, not to be distinctly uncivil, Rosier had to go and speak to him. "I'm glad that you can take a hint," Pansy's father said, slightly closing his keen, conscious eyes. "I take no hints. But I took a message, as I supposed it to be." "You took it? Where did you take it?" It seemed to poor Rosier he was being insulted, and he waited a moment, asking himself how much a true lover ought to submit to. "Madame Merle gave me, as I understood it, a message from you--to the effect that you declined to give me the opportunity I desire, the opportunity to explain my wishes to you." And he flattered himself he spoke rather sternly. "I don't see what Madame Merle has to do with it. Why did you apply to Madame Merle?" "I asked her for an opinion--for nothing more. I did so because she had seemed to me to know you very well." "She doesn't know me so well as she thinks," said Osmond. "I'm sorry for that, because she has given me some little ground for hope." Osmond stared into the fire a moment. "I set a great price on my daughter." "You can't set a higher one than I do. Don't I prove it by wishing to marry her?" "I wish to marry her very well," Osmond went on with a dry impertinence which, in another mood, poor Rosier would have admired. "Of course I pretend she'd marry well in marrying me. She couldn't marry a man who loves her more--or whom, I may venture to add, she loves more." "I'm not bound to accept your theories as to whom my daughter loves"--and Osmond looked up with a quick, cold smile. "I'm not theorising. Your daughter has spoken." "Not to me," Osmond continued, now bending forward a little and dropping his eyes to his boot-toes. "I have her promise, sir!" cried Rosier with the sharpness of exasperation. As their voices had been pitched very low before, such a note attracted some attention from the company. Osmond waited till this little movement had subsided; then he said, all undisturbed: "I think she has no recollection of having given it." They had been standing with their faces to the fire, and after he had uttered these last words the master of the house turned round again to the room. Before Rosier had time to reply he perceived that a gentleman--a stranger--had just come in, unannounced, according to the Roman custom, and was about to present himself to his host. The latter smiled blandly, but somewhat blankly; the visitor had a handsome face and a large, fair beard, and was evidently an Englishman. "You apparently don't recognise me," he said with a smile that expressed more than Osmond's. "Ah yes, now I do. I expected so little to see you." Rosier departed and went in direct pursuit of Pansy. He sought her, as usual, in the neighbouring room, but he again encountered Mrs. Osmond in his path. He gave his hostess no greeting--he was too righteously indignant, but said to her crudely: "Your husband's awfully cold-blooded." She gave the same mystical smile he had noticed before. "You can't expect every one to be as hot as yourself." "I don't pretend to be cold, but I'm cool. What has he been doing to his daughter?" "I've no idea." "Don't you take any interest?" Rosier demanded with his sense that she too was irritating. For a moment she answered nothing; then, "No!" she said abruptly and with a quickened light in her eyes which directly contradicted the word. "Pardon me if I don't believe that. Where's Miss Osmond?" "In the corner, making tea. Please leave her there." Rosier instantly discovered his friend, who had been hidden by intervening groups. He watched her, but her own attention was entirely given to her occupation. "What on earth has he done to her?" he asked again imploringly. "He declares to me she has given me up." "She has not given you up," Isabel said in a low tone and without looking at him. "Ah, thank you for that! Now I'll leave her alone as long as you think proper!" He had hardly spoken when he saw her change colour, and became aware that Osmond was coming toward her accompanied by the gentleman who had just entered. He judged the latter, in spite of the advantage of good looks and evident social experience, a little embarrassed. "Isabel," said her husband, "I bring you an old friend." Mrs. Osmond's face, though it wore a smile, was, like her old friend's, not perfectly confident. "I'm very happy to see Lord Warburton," she said. Rosier turned away and, now that his talk with her had been interrupted, felt absolved from the little pledge he had just taken. He had a quick impression that Mrs. Osmond wouldn't notice what he did. Isabel in fact, to do him justice, for some time quite ceased to observe him. She had been startled; she hardly knew if she felt a pleasure or a pain. Lord Warburton, however, now that he was face to face with her, was plainly quite sure of his own sense of the matter; though his grey eyes had still their fine original property of keeping recognition and attestation strictly sincere. He was "heavier" than of yore and looked older; he stood there very solidly and sensibly. "I suppose you didn't expect to see me," he said; "I've but just arrived. Literally, I only got here this evening. You see I've lost no time in coming to pay you my respects. I knew you were at home on Thursdays." "You see the fame of your Thursdays has spread to England," Osmond remarked to his wife. "It's very kind of Lord Warburton to come so soon; we're greatly flattered," Isabel said. "Ah well, it's better than stopping in one of those horrible inns," Osmond went on. "The hotel seems very good; I think it's the same at which I saw you four years since. You know it was here in Rome that we first met; it's a long time ago. Do you remember where I bade you good-bye?" his lordship asked of his hostess. "It was in the Capitol, in the first room." "I remember that myself," said Osmond. "I was there at the time." "Yes, I remember you there. I was very sorry to leave Rome--so sorry that, somehow or other, it became almost a dismal memory, and I've never cared to come back till to-day. But I knew you were living here," her old friend went on to Isabel, "and I assure you I've often thought of you. It must be a charming place to live in," he added with a look, round him, at her established home, in which she might have caught the dim ghost of his old ruefulness. "We should have been glad to see you at any time," Osmond observed with propriety. "Thank you very much. I haven't been out of England since then. Till a month ago I really supposed my travels over." "I've heard of you from time to time," said Isabel, who had already, with her rare capacity for such inward feats, taken the measure of what meeting him again meant for her. "I hope you've heard no harm. My life has been a remarkably complete blank." "Like the good reigns in history," Osmond suggested. He appeared to think his duties as a host now terminated--he had performed them so conscientiously. Nothing could have been more adequate, more nicely measured, than his courtesy to his wife's old friend. It was punctilious, it was explicit, it was everything but natural--a deficiency which Lord Warburton, who, himself, had on the whole a good deal of nature, may be supposed to have perceived. "I'll leave you and Mrs. Osmond together," he added. "You have reminiscences into which I don't enter." "I'm afraid you lose a good deal!" Lord Warburton called after him, as he moved away, in a tone which perhaps betrayed overmuch an appreciation of his generosity. Then the visitor turned on Isabel the deeper, the deepest, consciousness of his look, which gradually became more serious. "I'm really very glad to see you." "It's very pleasant. You're very kind." "Do you know that you're changed--a little?" She just hesitated. "Yes--a good deal." "I don't mean for the worse, of course; and yet how can I say for the better?" "I think I shall have no scruple in saying that to YOU," she bravely returned. "Ah well, for me--it's a long time. It would be a pity there shouldn't be something to show for it." They sat down and she asked him about his sisters, with other enquiries of a somewhat perfunctory kind. He answered her questions as if they interested him, and in a few moments she saw--or believed she saw--that he would press with less of his whole weight than of yore. Time had breathed upon his heart and, without chilling it, given it a relieved sense of having taken the air. Isabel felt her usual esteem for Time rise at a bound. Her friend's manner was certainly that of a contented man, one who would rather like people, or like her at least, to know him for such. "There's something I must tell you without more delay," he resumed. "I've brought Ralph Touchett with me." "Brought him with you?" Isabel's surprise was great. "He's at the hotel; he was too tired to come out and has gone to bed." "I'll go to see him," she immediately said. "That's exactly what I hoped you'd do. I had an idea you hadn't seen much of him since your marriage, that in fact your relations were a--a little more formal. That's why I hesitated--like an awkward Briton." "I'm as fond of Ralph as ever," Isabel answered. "But why has he come to Rome?" The declaration was very gentle, the question a little sharp. "Because he's very far gone, Mrs. Osmond." "Rome then is no place for him. I heard from him that he had determined to give up his custom of wintering abroad and to remain in England, indoors, in what he called an artificial climate." "Poor fellow, he doesn't succeed with the artificial! I went to see him three weeks ago, at Gardencourt, and found him thoroughly ill. He has been getting worse every year, and now he has no strength left. He smokes no more cigarettes! He had got up an artificial climate indeed; the house was as hot as Calcutta. Nevertheless he had suddenly taken it into his head to start for Sicily. I didn't believe in it--neither did the doctors, nor any of his friends. His mother, as I suppose you know, is in America, so there was no one to prevent him. He stuck to his idea that it would be the saving of him to spend the winter at Catania. He said he could take servants and furniture, could make himself comfortable, but in point of fact he hasn't brought anything. I wanted him at least to go by sea, to save fatigue; but he said he hated the sea and wished to stop at Rome. After that, though I thought it all rubbish, I made up my mind to come with him. I'm acting as--what do you call it in America?--as a kind of moderator. Poor Ralph's very moderate now. We left England a fortnight ago, and he has been very bad on the way. He can't keep warm, and the further south we come the more he feels the cold. He has got rather a good man, but I'm afraid he's beyond human help. I wanted him to take with him some clever fellow--I mean some sharp young doctor; but he wouldn't hear of it. If you don't mind my saying so, I think it was a most extraordinary time for Mrs. Touchett to decide on going to America." Isabel had listened eagerly; her face was full of pain and wonder. "My aunt does that at fixed periods and lets nothing turn her aside. When the date comes round she starts; I think she'd have started if Ralph had been dying." "I sometimes think he IS dying," Lord Warburton said. Isabel sprang up. "I'll go to him then now." He checked her; he was a little disconcerted at the quick effect of his words. "I don't mean I thought so to-night. On the contrary, to-day, in the train, he seemed particularly well; the idea of our reaching Rome--he's very fond of Rome, you know--gave him strength. An hour ago, when I bade him goodnight, he told me he was very tired, but very happy. Go to him in the morning; that's all I mean. I didn't tell him I was coming here; I didn't decide to till after we had separated. Then I remembered he had told me you had an evening, and that it was this very Thursday. It occurred to me to come in and tell you he's here, and let you know you had perhaps better not wait for him to call. I think he said he hadn't written to you." There was no need of Isabel's declaring that she would act upon Lord Warburton's information; she looked, as she sat there, like a winged creature held back. "Let alone that I wanted to see you for myself," her visitor gallantly added. "I don't understand Ralph's plan; it seems to me very wild," she said. "I was glad to think of him between those thick walls at Gardencourt." "He was completely alone there; the thick walls were his only company." "You went to see him; you've been extremely kind." "Oh dear, I had nothing to do," said Lord Warburton. "We hear, on the contrary, that you're doing great things. Every one speaks of you as a great statesman, and I'm perpetually seeing your name in the Times, which, by the way, doesn't appear to hold it in reverence. You're apparently as wild a radical as ever." "I don't feel nearly so wild; you know the world has come round to me. Touchett and I have kept up a sort of parliamentary debate all the way from London. I tell him he's the last of the Tories, and he calls me the King of the Goths--says I have, down to the details of my personal appearance, every sign of the brute. So you see there's life in him yet." Isabel had many questions to ask about Ralph, but she abstained from asking them all. She would see for herself on the morrow. She perceived that after a little Lord Warburton would tire of that subject--he had a conception of other possible topics. She was more and more able to say to herself that he had recovered, and, what is more to the point, she was able to say it without bitterness. He had been for her, of old, such an image of urgency, of insistence, of something to be resisted and reasoned with, that his reappearance at first menaced her with a new trouble. But she was now reassured; she could see he only wished to live with her on good terms, that she was to understand he had forgiven her and was incapable of the bad taste of making pointed allusions. This was not a form of revenge, of course; she had no suspicion of his wishing to punish her by an exhibition of disillusionment; she did him the justice to believe it had simply occurred to him that she would now take a good-natured interest in knowing he was resigned. It was the resignation of a healthy, manly nature, in which sentimental wounds could never fester. British politics had cured him; she had known they would. She gave an envious thought to the happier lot of men, who are always free to plunge into the healing waters of action. Lord Warburton of course spoke of the past, but he spoke of it without implications; he even went so far as to allude to their former meeting in Rome as a very jolly time. And he told her he had been immensely interested in hearing of her marriage and that it was a great pleasure for him to make Mr. Osmond's acquaintance--since he could hardly be said to have made it on the other occasion. He had not written to her at the time of that passage in her history, but he didn't apologise to her for this. The only thing he implied was that they were old friends, intimate friends. It was very much as an intimate friend that he said to her, suddenly, after a short pause which he had occupied in smiling, as he looked about him, like a person amused, at a provincial entertainment, by some innocent game of guesses-- "Well now, I suppose you're very happy and all that sort of thing?" Isabel answered with a quick laugh; the tone of his remark struck her almost as the accent of comedy. "Do you suppose if I were not I'd tell you?" "Well, I don't know. I don't see why not." "I do then. Fortunately, however, I'm very happy." "You've got an awfully good house." "Yes, it's very pleasant. But that's not my merit--it's my husband's." "You mean he has arranged it?" "Yes, it was nothing when we came." "He must be very clever." "He has a genius for upholstery," said Isabel. "There's a great rage for that sort of thing now. But you must have a taste of your own." "I enjoy things when they're done, but I've no ideas. I can never propose anything." "Do you mean you accept what others propose?" "Very willingly, for the most part." "That's a good thing to know. I shall propose to you something." "It will be very kind. I must say, however, that I've in a few small ways a certain initiative. I should like for instance to introduce you to some of these people." "Oh, please don't; I prefer sitting here. Unless it be to that young lady in the blue dress. She has a charming face." "The one talking to the rosy young man? That's my husband's daughter." "Lucky man, your husband. What a dear little maid!" "You must make her acquaintance." "In a moment--with pleasure. I like looking at her from here." He ceased to look at her, however, very soon; his eyes constantly reverted to Mrs. Osmond. "Do you know I was wrong just now in saying you had changed?" he presently went on. "You seem to me, after all, very much the same." "And yet I find it a great change to be married," said Isabel with mild gaiety. "It affects most people more than it has affected you. You see I haven't gone in for that." "It rather surprises me." "You ought to understand it, Mrs. Osmond. But I do want to marry," he added more simply. "It ought to be very easy," Isabel said, rising--after which she reflected, with a pang perhaps too visible, that she was hardly the person to say this. It was perhaps because Lord Warburton divined the pang that he generously forbore to call her attention to her not having contributed then to the facility. Edward Rosier had meanwhile seated himself on an ottoman beside Pansy's tea-table. He pretended at first to talk to her about trifles, and she asked him who was the new gentleman conversing with her stepmother. "He's an English lord," said Rosier. "I don't know more." "I wonder if he'll have some tea. The English are so fond of tea." "Never mind that; I've something particular to say to you." "Don't speak so loud every one will hear," said Pansy. "They won't hear if you continue to look that way: as if your only thought in life was the wish the kettle would boil." "It has just been filled; the servants never know!"--and she sighed with the weight of her responsibility. "Do you know what your father said to me just now? That you didn't mean what you said a week ago." "I don't mean everything I say. How can a young girl do that? But I mean what I say to you." "He told me you had forgotten me." "Ah no, I don't forget," said Pansy, showing her pretty teeth in a fixed smile. "Then everything's just the very same?" "Ah no, not the very same. Papa has been terribly severe." "What has he done to you?" "He asked me what you had done to me, and I told him everything. Then he forbade me to marry you." "You needn't mind that." "Oh yes, I must indeed. I can't disobey papa." "Not for one who loves you as I do, and whom you pretend to love?" She raised the lid of the tea-pot, gazing into this vessel for a moment; then she dropped six words into its aromatic depths. "I love you just as much." "What good will that do me?" "Ah," said Pansy, raising her sweet, vague eyes, "I don't know that." "You disappoint me," groaned poor Rosier. She was silent a little; she handed a tea-cup to a servant. "Please don't talk any more." "Is this to be all my satisfaction?" "Papa said I was not to talk with you." "Do you sacrifice me like that? Ah, it's too much!" "I wish you'd wait a little," said the girl in a voice just distinct enough to betray a quaver. "Of course I'll wait if you'll give me hope. But you take my life away." "I'll not give you up--oh no!" Pansy went on. "He'll try and make you marry some one else." "I'll never do that." "What then are we to wait for?" She hesitated again. "I'll speak to Mrs. Osmond and she'll help us." It was in this manner that she for the most part designated her stepmother. "She won't help us much. She's afraid." "Afraid of what?" "Of your father, I suppose." Pansy shook her little head. "She's not afraid of any one. We must have patience." "Ah, that's an awful word," Rosier groaned; he was deeply disconcerted. Oblivious of the customs of good society, he dropped his head into his hands and, supporting it with a melancholy grace, sat staring at the carpet. Presently he became aware of a good deal of movement about him and, as he looked up, saw Pansy making a curtsey--it was still her little curtsey of the convent--to the English lord whom Mrs. Osmond had introduced.

Edward Rosier goes to see Madame Merle, who quickly forgives him for breaking his promise not to speak to Isabel. She tells him that he needs to only be patient and he may have a chance. She also warns him not to visit the house too often. Edward Rosier then skips one evening of the Thursday night gatherings at the Palazzo Roccanero, where Isabel and Osmond live together. The next Thursday he attends though. He discusses his love for Pansy with Osmond, who tells him that Pansy does not care for him and will not want to marry him. Edward then goes to discuss the matter with Isabel. As they are speaking, Lord Warburton suddenly appears. Edward slips away to speak with Pansy. Lord Warburton informs Isabel that he has arrived with Ralph, who has taken a turn for the worse. Isabel decides to see Ralph the next morning. She notes that Warburton has nothing of the spirit of revenge, and bears no malice against her for refusing him. She envies him in fact, because as a man, he has been able to plunge himself into the "healing waters of action". He asks if she is happy, and she jokes that she would not tell him if she was not. She then says that she is happy. He says that he may yet marry. Edward Rosier meanwhile speaks to Pansy, asking if she has changed her mind about him. She says she has not, but that she has promised her father that she will not speak with him. She tells him that her plan is to speak with Isabel about helping change Osmond's mind. Lord Warburton and Isabel then come up to Pansy for Lord Warburton to be introduced to her

summary

He went to see Madame Merle on the morrow, and to his surprise she let him off rather easily. But she made him promise that he would stop there till something should have been decided. Mr. Osmond had had higher expectations; it was very true that as he had no intention of giving his daughter a portion such expectations were open to criticism or even, if one would, to ridicule. But she would advise Mr. Rosier not to take that tone; if he would possess his soul in patience he might arrive at his felicity. Mr. Osmond was not favourable to his suit, but it wouldn't be a miracle if he should gradually come round. Pansy would never defy her father, he might depend on that; so nothing was to be gained by precipitation. Mr. Osmond needed to accustom his mind to an offer of a sort that he had not hitherto entertained, and this result must come of itself--it was useless to try to force it. Rosier remarked that his own situation would be in the meanwhile the most uncomfortable in the world, and Madame Merle assured him that she felt for him. But, as she justly declared, one couldn't have everything one wanted; she had learned that lesson for herself. There would be no use in his writing to Gilbert Osmond, who had charged her to tell him as much. He wished the matter dropped for a few weeks and would himself write when he should have anything to communicate that it might please Mr. Rosier to hear. "He doesn't like your having spoken to Pansy, Ah, he doesn't like it at all," said Madame Merle. "I'm perfectly willing to give him a chance to tell me so!" "If you do that he'll tell you more than you care to hear. Go to the house, for the next month, as little as possible, and leave the rest to me." "As little as possible? Who's to measure the possibility?" "Let me measure it. Go on Thursday evenings with the rest of the world, but don't go at all at odd times, and don't fret about Pansy. I'll see that she understands everything. She's a calm little nature; she'll take it quietly." Edward Rosier fretted about Pansy a good deal, but he did as he was advised, and awaited another Thursday evening before returning to Palazzo Roccanera. There had been a party at dinner, so that though he went early the company was already tolerably numerous. Osmond, as usual, was in the first room, near the fire, staring straight at the door, so that, not to be distinctly uncivil, Rosier had to go and speak to him. "I'm glad that you can take a hint," Pansy's father said, slightly closing his keen, conscious eyes. "I take no hints. But I took a message, as I supposed it to be." "You took it? Where did you take it?" It seemed to poor Rosier he was being insulted, and he waited a moment, asking himself how much a true lover ought to submit to. "Madame Merle gave me, as I understood it, a message from you--to the effect that you declined to give me the opportunity I desire, the opportunity to explain my wishes to you." And he flattered himself he spoke rather sternly. "I don't see what Madame Merle has to do with it. Why did you apply to Madame Merle?" "I asked her for an opinion--for nothing more. I did so because she had seemed to me to know you very well." "She doesn't know me so well as she thinks," said Osmond. "I'm sorry for that, because she has given me some little ground for hope." Osmond stared into the fire a moment. "I set a great price on my daughter." "You can't set a higher one than I do. Don't I prove it by wishing to marry her?" "I wish to marry her very well," Osmond went on with a dry impertinence which, in another mood, poor Rosier would have admired. "Of course I pretend she'd marry well in marrying me. She couldn't marry a man who loves her more--or whom, I may venture to add, she loves more." "I'm not bound to accept your theories as to whom my daughter loves"--and Osmond looked up with a quick, cold smile. "I'm not theorising. Your daughter has spoken." "Not to me," Osmond continued, now bending forward a little and dropping his eyes to his boot-toes. "I have her promise, sir!" cried Rosier with the sharpness of exasperation. As their voices had been pitched very low before, such a note attracted some attention from the company. Osmond waited till this little movement had subsided; then he said, all undisturbed: "I think she has no recollection of having given it." They had been standing with their faces to the fire, and after he had uttered these last words the master of the house turned round again to the room. Before Rosier had time to reply he perceived that a gentleman--a stranger--had just come in, unannounced, according to the Roman custom, and was about to present himself to his host. The latter smiled blandly, but somewhat blankly; the visitor had a handsome face and a large, fair beard, and was evidently an Englishman. "You apparently don't recognise me," he said with a smile that expressed more than Osmond's. "Ah yes, now I do. I expected so little to see you." Rosier departed and went in direct pursuit of Pansy. He sought her, as usual, in the neighbouring room, but he again encountered Mrs. Osmond in his path. He gave his hostess no greeting--he was too righteously indignant, but said to her crudely: "Your husband's awfully cold-blooded." She gave the same mystical smile he had noticed before. "You can't expect every one to be as hot as yourself." "I don't pretend to be cold, but I'm cool. What has he been doing to his daughter?" "I've no idea." "Don't you take any interest?" Rosier demanded with his sense that she too was irritating. For a moment she answered nothing; then, "No!" she said abruptly and with a quickened light in her eyes which directly contradicted the word. "Pardon me if I don't believe that. Where's Miss Osmond?" "In the corner, making tea. Please leave her there." Rosier instantly discovered his friend, who had been hidden by intervening groups. He watched her, but her own attention was entirely given to her occupation. "What on earth has he done to her?" he asked again imploringly. "He declares to me she has given me up." "She has not given you up," Isabel said in a low tone and without looking at him. "Ah, thank you for that! Now I'll leave her alone as long as you think proper!" He had hardly spoken when he saw her change colour, and became aware that Osmond was coming toward her accompanied by the gentleman who had just entered. He judged the latter, in spite of the advantage of good looks and evident social experience, a little embarrassed. "Isabel," said her husband, "I bring you an old friend." Mrs. Osmond's face, though it wore a smile, was, like her old friend's, not perfectly confident. "I'm very happy to see Lord Warburton," she said. Rosier turned away and, now that his talk with her had been interrupted, felt absolved from the little pledge he had just taken. He had a quick impression that Mrs. Osmond wouldn't notice what he did. Isabel in fact, to do him justice, for some time quite ceased to observe him. She had been startled; she hardly knew if she felt a pleasure or a pain. Lord Warburton, however, now that he was face to face with her, was plainly quite sure of his own sense of the matter; though his grey eyes had still their fine original property of keeping recognition and attestation strictly sincere. He was "heavier" than of yore and looked older; he stood there very solidly and sensibly. "I suppose you didn't expect to see me," he said; "I've but just arrived. Literally, I only got here this evening. You see I've lost no time in coming to pay you my respects. I knew you were at home on Thursdays." "You see the fame of your Thursdays has spread to England," Osmond remarked to his wife. "It's very kind of Lord Warburton to come so soon; we're greatly flattered," Isabel said. "Ah well, it's better than stopping in one of those horrible inns," Osmond went on. "The hotel seems very good; I think it's the same at which I saw you four years since. You know it was here in Rome that we first met; it's a long time ago. Do you remember where I bade you good-bye?" his lordship asked of his hostess. "It was in the Capitol, in the first room." "I remember that myself," said Osmond. "I was there at the time." "Yes, I remember you there. I was very sorry to leave Rome--so sorry that, somehow or other, it became almost a dismal memory, and I've never cared to come back till to-day. But I knew you were living here," her old friend went on to Isabel, "and I assure you I've often thought of you. It must be a charming place to live in," he added with a look, round him, at her established home, in which she might have caught the dim ghost of his old ruefulness. "We should have been glad to see you at any time," Osmond observed with propriety. "Thank you very much. I haven't been out of England since then. Till a month ago I really supposed my travels over." "I've heard of you from time to time," said Isabel, who had already, with her rare capacity for such inward feats, taken the measure of what meeting him again meant for her. "I hope you've heard no harm. My life has been a remarkably complete blank." "Like the good reigns in history," Osmond suggested. He appeared to think his duties as a host now terminated--he had performed them so conscientiously. Nothing could have been more adequate, more nicely measured, than his courtesy to his wife's old friend. It was punctilious, it was explicit, it was everything but natural--a deficiency which Lord Warburton, who, himself, had on the whole a good deal of nature, may be supposed to have perceived. "I'll leave you and Mrs. Osmond together," he added. "You have reminiscences into which I don't enter." "I'm afraid you lose a good deal!" Lord Warburton called after him, as he moved away, in a tone which perhaps betrayed overmuch an appreciation of his generosity. Then the visitor turned on Isabel the deeper, the deepest, consciousness of his look, which gradually became more serious. "I'm really very glad to see you." "It's very pleasant. You're very kind." "Do you know that you're changed--a little?" She just hesitated. "Yes--a good deal." "I don't mean for the worse, of course; and yet how can I say for the better?" "I think I shall have no scruple in saying that to YOU," she bravely returned. "Ah well, for me--it's a long time. It would be a pity there shouldn't be something to show for it." They sat down and she asked him about his sisters, with other enquiries of a somewhat perfunctory kind. He answered her questions as if they interested him, and in a few moments she saw--or believed she saw--that he would press with less of his whole weight than of yore. Time had breathed upon his heart and, without chilling it, given it a relieved sense of having taken the air. Isabel felt her usual esteem for Time rise at a bound. Her friend's manner was certainly that of a contented man, one who would rather like people, or like her at least, to know him for such. "There's something I must tell you without more delay," he resumed. "I've brought Ralph Touchett with me." "Brought him with you?" Isabel's surprise was great. "He's at the hotel; he was too tired to come out and has gone to bed." "I'll go to see him," she immediately said. "That's exactly what I hoped you'd do. I had an idea you hadn't seen much of him since your marriage, that in fact your relations were a--a little more formal. That's why I hesitated--like an awkward Briton." "I'm as fond of Ralph as ever," Isabel answered. "But why has he come to Rome?" The declaration was very gentle, the question a little sharp. "Because he's very far gone, Mrs. Osmond." "Rome then is no place for him. I heard from him that he had determined to give up his custom of wintering abroad and to remain in England, indoors, in what he called an artificial climate." "Poor fellow, he doesn't succeed with the artificial! I went to see him three weeks ago, at Gardencourt, and found him thoroughly ill. He has been getting worse every year, and now he has no strength left. He smokes no more cigarettes! He had got up an artificial climate indeed; the house was as hot as Calcutta. Nevertheless he had suddenly taken it into his head to start for Sicily. I didn't believe in it--neither did the doctors, nor any of his friends. His mother, as I suppose you know, is in America, so there was no one to prevent him. He stuck to his idea that it would be the saving of him to spend the winter at Catania. He said he could take servants and furniture, could make himself comfortable, but in point of fact he hasn't brought anything. I wanted him at least to go by sea, to save fatigue; but he said he hated the sea and wished to stop at Rome. After that, though I thought it all rubbish, I made up my mind to come with him. I'm acting as--what do you call it in America?--as a kind of moderator. Poor Ralph's very moderate now. We left England a fortnight ago, and he has been very bad on the way. He can't keep warm, and the further south we come the more he feels the cold. He has got rather a good man, but I'm afraid he's beyond human help. I wanted him to take with him some clever fellow--I mean some sharp young doctor; but he wouldn't hear of it. If you don't mind my saying so, I think it was a most extraordinary time for Mrs. Touchett to decide on going to America." Isabel had listened eagerly; her face was full of pain and wonder. "My aunt does that at fixed periods and lets nothing turn her aside. When the date comes round she starts; I think she'd have started if Ralph had been dying." "I sometimes think he IS dying," Lord Warburton said. Isabel sprang up. "I'll go to him then now." He checked her; he was a little disconcerted at the quick effect of his words. "I don't mean I thought so to-night. On the contrary, to-day, in the train, he seemed particularly well; the idea of our reaching Rome--he's very fond of Rome, you know--gave him strength. An hour ago, when I bade him goodnight, he told me he was very tired, but very happy. Go to him in the morning; that's all I mean. I didn't tell him I was coming here; I didn't decide to till after we had separated. Then I remembered he had told me you had an evening, and that it was this very Thursday. It occurred to me to come in and tell you he's here, and let you know you had perhaps better not wait for him to call. I think he said he hadn't written to you." There was no need of Isabel's declaring that she would act upon Lord Warburton's information; she looked, as she sat there, like a winged creature held back. "Let alone that I wanted to see you for myself," her visitor gallantly added. "I don't understand Ralph's plan; it seems to me very wild," she said. "I was glad to think of him between those thick walls at Gardencourt." "He was completely alone there; the thick walls were his only company." "You went to see him; you've been extremely kind." "Oh dear, I had nothing to do," said Lord Warburton. "We hear, on the contrary, that you're doing great things. Every one speaks of you as a great statesman, and I'm perpetually seeing your name in the Times, which, by the way, doesn't appear to hold it in reverence. You're apparently as wild a radical as ever." "I don't feel nearly so wild; you know the world has come round to me. Touchett and I have kept up a sort of parliamentary debate all the way from London. I tell him he's the last of the Tories, and he calls me the King of the Goths--says I have, down to the details of my personal appearance, every sign of the brute. So you see there's life in him yet." Isabel had many questions to ask about Ralph, but she abstained from asking them all. She would see for herself on the morrow. She perceived that after a little Lord Warburton would tire of that subject--he had a conception of other possible topics. She was more and more able to say to herself that he had recovered, and, what is more to the point, she was able to say it without bitterness. He had been for her, of old, such an image of urgency, of insistence, of something to be resisted and reasoned with, that his reappearance at first menaced her with a new trouble. But she was now reassured; she could see he only wished to live with her on good terms, that she was to understand he had forgiven her and was incapable of the bad taste of making pointed allusions. This was not a form of revenge, of course; she had no suspicion of his wishing to punish her by an exhibition of disillusionment; she did him the justice to believe it had simply occurred to him that she would now take a good-natured interest in knowing he was resigned. It was the resignation of a healthy, manly nature, in which sentimental wounds could never fester. British politics had cured him; she had known they would. She gave an envious thought to the happier lot of men, who are always free to plunge into the healing waters of action. Lord Warburton of course spoke of the past, but he spoke of it without implications; he even went so far as to allude to their former meeting in Rome as a very jolly time. And he told her he had been immensely interested in hearing of her marriage and that it was a great pleasure for him to make Mr. Osmond's acquaintance--since he could hardly be said to have made it on the other occasion. He had not written to her at the time of that passage in her history, but he didn't apologise to her for this. The only thing he implied was that they were old friends, intimate friends. It was very much as an intimate friend that he said to her, suddenly, after a short pause which he had occupied in smiling, as he looked about him, like a person amused, at a provincial entertainment, by some innocent game of guesses-- "Well now, I suppose you're very happy and all that sort of thing?" Isabel answered with a quick laugh; the tone of his remark struck her almost as the accent of comedy. "Do you suppose if I were not I'd tell you?" "Well, I don't know. I don't see why not." "I do then. Fortunately, however, I'm very happy." "You've got an awfully good house." "Yes, it's very pleasant. But that's not my merit--it's my husband's." "You mean he has arranged it?" "Yes, it was nothing when we came." "He must be very clever." "He has a genius for upholstery," said Isabel. "There's a great rage for that sort of thing now. But you must have a taste of your own." "I enjoy things when they're done, but I've no ideas. I can never propose anything." "Do you mean you accept what others propose?" "Very willingly, for the most part." "That's a good thing to know. I shall propose to you something." "It will be very kind. I must say, however, that I've in a few small ways a certain initiative. I should like for instance to introduce you to some of these people." "Oh, please don't; I prefer sitting here. Unless it be to that young lady in the blue dress. She has a charming face." "The one talking to the rosy young man? That's my husband's daughter." "Lucky man, your husband. What a dear little maid!" "You must make her acquaintance." "In a moment--with pleasure. I like looking at her from here." He ceased to look at her, however, very soon; his eyes constantly reverted to Mrs. Osmond. "Do you know I was wrong just now in saying you had changed?" he presently went on. "You seem to me, after all, very much the same." "And yet I find it a great change to be married," said Isabel with mild gaiety. "It affects most people more than it has affected you. You see I haven't gone in for that." "It rather surprises me." "You ought to understand it, Mrs. Osmond. But I do want to marry," he added more simply. "It ought to be very easy," Isabel said, rising--after which she reflected, with a pang perhaps too visible, that she was hardly the person to say this. It was perhaps because Lord Warburton divined the pang that he generously forbore to call her attention to her not having contributed then to the facility. Edward Rosier had meanwhile seated himself on an ottoman beside Pansy's tea-table. He pretended at first to talk to her about trifles, and she asked him who was the new gentleman conversing with her stepmother. "He's an English lord," said Rosier. "I don't know more." "I wonder if he'll have some tea. The English are so fond of tea." "Never mind that; I've something particular to say to you." "Don't speak so loud every one will hear," said Pansy. "They won't hear if you continue to look that way: as if your only thought in life was the wish the kettle would boil." "It has just been filled; the servants never know!"--and she sighed with the weight of her responsibility. "Do you know what your father said to me just now? That you didn't mean what you said a week ago." "I don't mean everything I say. How can a young girl do that? But I mean what I say to you." "He told me you had forgotten me." "Ah no, I don't forget," said Pansy, showing her pretty teeth in a fixed smile. "Then everything's just the very same?" "Ah no, not the very same. Papa has been terribly severe." "What has he done to you?" "He asked me what you had done to me, and I told him everything. Then he forbade me to marry you." "You needn't mind that." "Oh yes, I must indeed. I can't disobey papa." "Not for one who loves you as I do, and whom you pretend to love?" She raised the lid of the tea-pot, gazing into this vessel for a moment; then she dropped six words into its aromatic depths. "I love you just as much." "What good will that do me?" "Ah," said Pansy, raising her sweet, vague eyes, "I don't know that." "You disappoint me," groaned poor Rosier. She was silent a little; she handed a tea-cup to a servant. "Please don't talk any more." "Is this to be all my satisfaction?" "Papa said I was not to talk with you." "Do you sacrifice me like that? Ah, it's too much!" "I wish you'd wait a little," said the girl in a voice just distinct enough to betray a quaver. "Of course I'll wait if you'll give me hope. But you take my life away." "I'll not give you up--oh no!" Pansy went on. "He'll try and make you marry some one else." "I'll never do that." "What then are we to wait for?" She hesitated again. "I'll speak to Mrs. Osmond and she'll help us." It was in this manner that she for the most part designated her stepmother. "She won't help us much. She's afraid." "Afraid of what?" "Of your father, I suppose." Pansy shook her little head. "She's not afraid of any one. We must have patience." "Ah, that's an awful word," Rosier groaned; he was deeply disconcerted. Oblivious of the customs of good society, he dropped his head into his hands and, supporting it with a melancholy grace, sat staring at the carpet. Presently he became aware of a good deal of movement about him and, as he looked up, saw Pansy making a curtsey--it was still her little curtsey of the convent--to the English lord whom Mrs. Osmond had introduced.

Many years have passed once Chapter 36 opens. It is an interesting technical choice on the part of James to begin this second part of his novel through the third-person point of view of Edward Rosier. Edward is not exactly an admirable character, and the narrator points out that his vision of Pansy is inaccurate. He also seems to resemble Osmond in subtle ways: they are both collectors, and they both have a habit of comparing persons of value to objects of value. He also believes that his own taste is quite accurately the only aesthetic standard - although it differs from Osmond's. In other words, his perspective is certainly not characterized by the perspicacity of others. Why then does James choose to introduce the story through his eyes? One answer might be that Edward is an example of James' technique of the "ficelle" - a character who is two-dimensional and is used merely to move the action of the story along. It is James' way of economically summarizing what the relationship between Osmond and Isabel has turned out to be. As James once famously said, "Really, universally, relations stop nowhere, and the exquisite problem of the artist is eternally but to draw, by a geometry of his own, the circle within which they shall happily appear to do so" . It is not until Chapter 40 that we get a peek into Isabel's world. Instead, Ralph's analysis in Chapter 39 of the situation paints a bleak picture for us. Ralph still believes Osmond is selfish and vulgar, and he believes that he has reduced Isabel to the function of being a "representative" of his own lack of values. It is interesting to pause over what is meant by an "intrinsic value" as opposed to Osmond's true values. Osmond cares what other people think of him, by Ralph's theory -- he cares how he appears to the world. He cares about his reputation and about having the means to show himself off in the world. But, the question is: does anyone else have an intrinsic value in this novel? Isabel is valuable, as James has explained in the preface, because others think she is interesting. This too is a value gained because of the opinion of others. Furthermore, a comparison can be made between Henry James as the author and Gilbert Osmond as the manipulative husband: Henry James also enjoyed financial success from "using" Isabel Archer to represent his own ideas. What is the intrinsic value of the novel itself? Is it supposed to be a representation of the author's ideas, or is it valuable for some other reason? This question is being posed in a meta-fictional sense. Can we really detach the idea of "intrinsic value" from values for others -- isn't value, after all, a social phenomenon?

analysis

It will probably not surprise the reflective reader that Ralph Touchett should have seen less of his cousin since her marriage than he had done before that event--an event of which he took such a view as could hardly prove a confirmation of intimacy. He had uttered his thought, as we know, and after this had held his peace, Isabel not having invited him to resume a discussion which marked an era in their relations. That discussion had made a difference--the difference he feared rather than the one he hoped. It had not chilled the girl's zeal in carrying out her engagement, but it had come dangerously near to spoiling a friendship. No reference was ever again made between them to Ralph's opinion of Gilbert Osmond, and by surrounding this topic with a sacred silence they managed to preserve a semblance of reciprocal frankness. But there was a difference, as Ralph often said to himself--there was a difference. She had not forgiven him, she never would forgive him: that was all he had gained. She thought she had forgiven him; she believed she didn't care; and as she was both very generous and very proud these convictions represented a certain reality. But whether or no the event should justify him he would virtually have done her a wrong, and the wrong was of the sort that women remember best. As Osmond's wife she could never again be his friend. If in this character she should enjoy the felicity she expected, she would have nothing but contempt for the man who had attempted, in advance, to undermine a blessing so dear; and if on the other hand his warning should be justified the vow she had taken that he should never know it would lay upon her spirit such a burden as to make her hate him. So dismal had been, during the year that followed his cousin's marriage, Ralph's prevision of the future; and if his meditations appear morbid we must remember he was not in the bloom of health. He consoled himself as he might by behaving (as he deemed) beautifully, and was present at the ceremony by which Isabel was united to Mr. Osmond, and which was performed in Florence in the month of June. He learned from his mother that Isabel at first had thought of celebrating her nuptials in her native land, but that as simplicity was what she chiefly desired to secure she had finally decided, in spite of Osmond's professed willingness to make a journey of any length, that this characteristic would be best embodied in their being married by the nearest clergyman in the shortest time. The thing was done therefore at the little American chapel, on a very hot day, in the presence only of Mrs. Touchett and her son, of Pansy Osmond and the Countess Gemini. That severity in the proceedings of which I just spoke was in part the result of the absence of two persons who might have been looked for on the occasion and who would have lent it a certain richness. Madame Merle had been invited, but Madame Merle, who was unable to leave Rome, had written a gracious letter of excuses. Henrietta Stackpole had not been invited, as her departure from America, announced to Isabel by Mr. Goodwood, was in fact frustrated by the duties of her profession; but she had sent a letter, less gracious than Madame Merle's, intimating that, had she been able to cross the Atlantic, she would have been present not only as a witness but as a critic. Her return to Europe had taken place somewhat later, and she had effected a meeting with Isabel in the autumn, in Paris, when she had indulged--perhaps a trifle too freely--her critical genius. Poor Osmond, who was chiefly the subject of it, had protested so sharply that Henrietta was obliged to declare to Isabel that she had taken a step which put a barrier between them. "It isn't in the least that you've married--it is that you have married HIM," she had deemed it her duty to remark; agreeing, it will be seen, much more with Ralph Touchett than she suspected, though she had few of his hesitations and compunctions. Henrietta's second visit to Europe, however, was not apparently to have been made in vain; for just at the moment when Osmond had declared to Isabel that he really must object to that newspaper-woman, and Isabel had answered that it seemed to her he took Henrietta too hard, the good Mr. Bantling had appeared upon the scene and proposed that they should take a run down to Spain. Henrietta's letters from Spain had proved the most acceptable she had yet published, and there had been one in especial, dated from the Alhambra and entitled 'Moors and Moonlight,' which generally passed for her masterpiece. Isabel had been secretly disappointed at her husband's not seeing his way simply to take the poor girl for funny. She even wondered if his sense of fun, or of the funny--which would be his sense of humour, wouldn't it?--were by chance defective. Of course she herself looked at the matter as a person whose present happiness had nothing to grudge to Henrietta's violated conscience. Osmond had thought their alliance a kind of monstrosity; he couldn't imagine what they had in common. For him, Mr. Bantling's fellow tourist was simply the most vulgar of women, and he had also pronounced her the most abandoned. Against this latter clause of the verdict Isabel had appealed with an ardour that had made him wonder afresh at the oddity of some of his wife's tastes. Isabel could explain it only by saying that she liked to know people who were as different as possible from herself. "Why then don't you make the acquaintance of your washerwoman?" Osmond had enquired; to which Isabel had answered that she was afraid her washerwoman wouldn't care for her. Now Henrietta cared so much. Ralph had seen nothing of her for the greater part of the two years that had followed her marriage; the winter that formed the beginning of her residence in Rome he had spent again at San Remo, where he had been joined in the spring by his mother, who afterwards had gone with him to England, to see what they were doing at the bank--an operation she couldn't induce him to perform. Ralph had taken a lease of his house at San Remo, a small villa which he had occupied still another winter; but late in the month of April of this second year he had come down to Rome. It was the first time since her marriage that he had stood face to face with Isabel; his desire to see her again was then of the keenest. She had written to him from time to time, but her letters told him nothing he wanted to know. He had asked his mother what she was making of her life, and his mother had simply answered that she supposed she was making the best of it. Mrs. Touchett had not the imagination that communes with the unseen, and she now pretended to no intimacy with her niece, whom she rarely encountered. This young woman appeared to be living in a sufficiently honourable way, but Mrs. Touchett still remained of the opinion that her marriage had been a shabby affair. It had given her no pleasure to think of Isabel's establishment, which she was sure was a very lame business. From time to time, in Florence, she rubbed against the Countess Gemini, doing her best always to minimise the contact; and the Countess reminded her of Osmond, who made her think of Isabel. The Countess was less talked of in these days; but Mrs. Touchett augured no good of that: it only proved how she had been talked of before. There was a more direct suggestion of Isabel in the person of Madame Merle; but Madame Merle's relations with Mrs. Touchett had undergone a perceptible change. Isabel's aunt had told her, without circumlocution, that she had played too ingenious a part; and Madame Merle, who never quarrelled with any one, who appeared to think no one worth it, and who had performed the miracle of living, more or less, for several years with Mrs. Touchett and showing no symptom of irritation--Madame Merle now took a very high tone and declared that this was an accusation from which she couldn't stoop to defend herself. She added, however (without stooping), that her behaviour had been only too simple, that she had believed only what she saw, that she saw Isabel was not eager to marry and Osmond not eager to please (his repeated visits had been nothing; he was boring himself to death on his hill-top and he came merely for amusement). Isabel had kept her sentiments to herself, and her journey to Greece and Egypt had effectually thrown dust in her companion's eyes. Madame Merle accepted the event--she was unprepared to think of it as a scandal; but that she had played any part in it, double or single, was an imputation against which she proudly protested. It was doubtless in consequence of Mrs. Touchett's attitude, and of the injury it offered to habits consecrated by many charming seasons, that Madame Merle had, after this, chosen to pass many months in England, where her credit was quite unimpaired. Mrs. Touchett had done her a wrong; there are some things that can't be forgiven. But Madame Merle suffered in silence; there was always something exquisite in her dignity. Ralph, as I say, had wished to see for himself; but while engaged in this pursuit he had yet felt afresh what a fool he had been to put the girl on her guard. He had played the wrong card, and now he had lost the game. He should see nothing, he should learn nothing; for him she would always wear a mask. His true line would have been to profess delight in her union, so that later, when, as Ralph phrased it, the bottom should fall out of it, she might have the pleasure of saying to him that he had been a goose. He would gladly have consented to pass for a goose in order to know Isabel's real situation. At present, however, she neither taunted him with his fallacies nor pretended that her own confidence was justified; if she wore a mask it completely covered her face. There was something fixed and mechanical in the serenity painted on it; this was not an expression, Ralph said--it was a representation, it was even an advertisement. She had lost her child; that was a sorrow, but it was a sorrow she scarcely spoke of; there was more to say about it than she could say to Ralph. It belonged to the past, moreover; it had occurred six months before and she had already laid aside the tokens of mourning. She appeared to be leading the life of the world; Ralph heard her spoken of as having a "charming position." He observed that she produced the impression of being peculiarly enviable, that it was supposed, among many people, to be a privilege even to know her. Her house was not open to every one, and she had an evening in the week to which people were not invited as a matter of course. She lived with a certain magnificence, but you needed to be a member of her circle to perceive it; for there was nothing to gape at, nothing to criticise, nothing even to admire, in the daily proceedings of Mr. and Mrs. Osmond. Ralph, in all this, recognised the hand of the master; for he knew that Isabel had no faculty for producing studied impressions. She struck him as having a great love of movement, of gaiety, of late hours, of long rides, of fatigue; an eagerness to be entertained, to be interested, even to be bored, to make acquaintances, to see people who were talked about, to explore the neighbourhood of Rome, to enter into relation with certain of the mustiest relics of its old society. In all this there was much less discrimination than in that desire for comprehensiveness of development on which he had been used to exercise his wit. There was a kind of violence in some of her impulses, of crudity in some of her experiments, which took him by surprise: it seemed to him that she even spoke faster, moved faster, breathed faster, than before her marriage. Certainly she had fallen into exaggerations--she who used to care so much for the pure truth; and whereas of old she had a great delight in good-humoured argument, in intellectual play (she never looked so charming as when in the genial heat of discussion she received a crushing blow full in the face and brushed it away as a feather), she appeared now to think there was nothing worth people's either differing about or agreeing upon. Of old she had been curious, and now she was indifferent, and yet in spite of her indifference her activity was greater than ever. Slender still, but lovelier than before, she had gained no great maturity of aspect; yet there was an amplitude and a brilliancy in her personal arrangements that gave a touch of insolence to her beauty. Poor human-hearted Isabel, what perversity had bitten her? Her light step drew a mass of drapery behind it; her intelligent head sustained a majesty of ornament. The free, keen girl had become quite another person; what he saw was the fine lady who was supposed to represent something. What did Isabel represent? Ralph asked himself; and he could only answer by saying that she represented Gilbert Osmond. "Good heavens, what a function!" he then woefully exclaimed. He was lost in wonder at the mystery of things. He recognised Osmond, as I say; he recognised him at every turn. He saw how he kept all things within limits; how he adjusted, regulated, animated their manner of life. Osmond was in his element; at last he had material to work with. He always had an eye to effect, and his effects were deeply calculated. They were produced by no vulgar means, but the motive was as vulgar as the art was great. To surround his interior with a sort of invidious sanctity, to tantalise society with a sense of exclusion, to make people believe his house was different from every other, to impart to the face that he presented to the world a cold originality--this was the ingenious effort of the personage to whom Isabel had attributed a superior morality. "He works with superior material," Ralph said to himself; "it's rich abundance compared with his former resources." Ralph was a clever man; but Ralph had never--to his own sense--been so clever as when he observed, in petto, that under the guise of caring only for intrinsic values Osmond lived exclusively for the world. 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. His tastes, his studies, his accomplishments, his collections, were all for a purpose. His life on his hill-top at Florence had been the conscious attitude of years. His solitude, his ennui, his love for his daughter, his good manners, his bad manners, were so many features of a mental image constantly present to him as a model of impertinence and mystification. His ambition was not to please the world, but to please himself by exciting the world's curiosity and then declining to satisfy it. It had made him feel great, ever, to play the world a trick. The thing he had done in his life most directly to please himself was his marrying Miss Archer; though in this case indeed the gullible world was in a manner embodied in poor Isabel, who had been mystified to the top of her bent. Ralph of course found a fitness in being consistent; he had embraced a creed, and as he had suffered for it he could not in honour forsake it. I give this little sketch of its articles for what they may at the time have been worth. It was certain that he was very skilful in fitting the facts to his theory--even the fact that during the month he spent in Rome at this period the husband of the woman he loved appeared to regard him not in the least as an enemy. For Gilbert Osmond Ralph had not now that importance. It was not that he had the importance of a friend; it was rather that he had none at all. He was Isabel's cousin and he was rather unpleasantly ill--it was on this basis that Osmond treated with him. He made the proper enquiries, asked about his health, about Mrs. Touchett, about his opinion of winter climates, whether he were comfortable at his hotel. He addressed him, on the few occasions of their meeting, not a word that was not necessary; but his manner had always the urbanity proper to conscious success in the presence of conscious failure. For all this, Ralph had had, toward the end, a sharp inward vision of Osmond's making it of small ease to his wife that she should continue to receive Mr. Touchett. He was not jealous--he had not that excuse; no one could be jealous of Ralph. But he made Isabel pay for her old-time kindness, of which so much was still left; and as Ralph had no idea of her paying too much, so when his suspicion had become sharp, he had taken himself off. In doing so he had deprived Isabel of a very interesting occupation: she had been constantly wondering what fine principle was keeping him alive. She had decided that it was his love of conversation; his conversation had been better than ever. He had given up walking; he was no longer a humorous stroller. He sat all day in a chair--almost any chair would serve, and was so dependent on what you would do for him that, had not his talk been highly contemplative, you might have thought he was blind. The reader already knows more about him than Isabel was ever to know, and the reader may therefore be given the key to the mystery. What kept Ralph alive was simply the fact that he had not yet seen enough of the person in the world in whom he was most interested: he was not yet satisfied. There was more to come; he couldn't make up his mind to lose that. He wanted to see what she would make of her husband--or what her husband would make of her. This was only the first act of the drama, and he was determined to sit out the performance. His determination had held good; it had kept him going some eighteen months more, till the time of his return to Rome with Lord Warburton. It had given him indeed such an air of intending to live indefinitely that Mrs. Touchett, though more accessible to confusions of thought in the matter of this strange, unremunerative--and unremunerated--son of hers than she had ever been before, had, as we have learned, not scrupled to embark for a distant land. If Ralph had been kept alive by suspense it was with a good deal of the same emotion--the excitement of wondering in what state she should find him--that Isabel mounted to his apartment the day after Lord Warburton had notified her of his arrival in Rome. She spent an hour with him; it was the first of several visits. Gilbert Osmond called on him punctually, and on their sending their carriage for him Ralph came more than once to Palazzo Roccanera. A fortnight elapsed, at the end of which Ralph announced to Lord Warburton that he thought after all he wouldn't go to Sicily. The two men had been dining together after a day spent by the latter in ranging about the Campagna. They had left the table, and Warburton, before the chimney, was lighting a cigar, which he instantly removed from his lips. "Won't go to Sicily? Where then will you go?" "Well, I guess I won't go anywhere," said Ralph, from the sofa, all shamelessly. "Do you mean you'll return to England?" "Oh dear no; I'll stay in Rome." "Rome won't do for you. Rome's not warm enough." "It will have to do. I'll make it do. See how well I've been." Lord Warburton looked at him a while, puffing a cigar and as if trying to see it. "You've been better than you were on the journey, certainly. I wonder how you lived through that. But I don't understand your condition. I recommend you to try Sicily." "I can't try," said poor Ralph. "I've done trying. I can't move further. I can't face that journey. Fancy me between Scylla and Charybdis! I don't want to die on the Sicilian plains--to be snatched away, like Proserpine in the same locality, to the Plutonian shades." "What the deuce then did you come for?" his lordship enquired. "Because the idea took me. I see it won't do. It really doesn't matter where I am now. I've exhausted all remedies, I've swallowed all climates. As I'm here I'll stay. I haven't a single cousin in Sicily--much less a married one." "Your cousin's certainly an inducement. But what does the doctor say?" "I haven't asked him, and I don't care a fig. If I die here Mrs. Osmond will bury me. But I shall not die here." "I hope not." Lord Warburton continued to smoke reflectively. "Well, I must say," he resumed, "for myself I'm very glad you don't insist on Sicily. I had a horror of that journey." "Ah, but for you it needn't have mattered. I had no idea of dragging you in my train." "I certainly didn't mean to let you go alone." "My dear Warburton, I never expected you to come further than this," Ralph cried. "I should have gone with you and seen you settled," said Lord Warburton. "You're a very good Christian. You're a very kind man." "Then I should have come back here." "And then you'd have gone to England." "No, no; I should have stayed." "Well," said Ralph, "if that's what we are both up to, I don't see where Sicily comes in!" His companion was silent; he sat staring at the fire. At last, looking up, "I say, tell me this," he broke out; "did you really mean to go to Sicily when we started?" "Ah, vous m'en demandez trop! Let me put a question first. Did you come with me quite--platonically?" "I don't know what you mean by that. I wanted to come abroad." "I suspect we've each been playing our little game." "Speak for yourself. I made no secret whatever of my desiring to be here a while." "Yes, I remember you said you wished to see the Minister of Foreign Affairs." "I've seen him three times. He's very amusing." "I think you've forgotten what you came for," said Ralph. "Perhaps I have," his companion answered rather gravely. These two were gentlemen of a race which is not distinguished by the absence of reserve, and they had travelled together from London to Rome without an allusion to matters that were uppermost in the mind of each. There was an old subject they had once discussed, but it had lost its recognised place in their attention, and even after their arrival in Rome, where many things led back to it, they had kept the same half-diffident, half-confident silence. "I recommend you to get the doctor's consent, all the same," Lord Warburton went on, abruptly, after an interval. "The doctor's consent will spoil it. I never have it when I can help it." "What then does Mrs. Osmond think?" Ralph's friend demanded. "I've not told her. She'll probably say that Rome's too cold and even offer to go with me to Catania. She's capable of that." "In your place I should like it." "Her husband won't like it." "Ah well, I can fancy that; though it seems to me you're not bound to mind his likings. They're his affair." "I don't want to make any more trouble between them," said Ralph. "Is there so much already?" "There's complete preparation for it. Her going off with me would make the explosion. Osmond isn't fond of his wife's cousin." "Then of course he'd make a row. But won't he make a row if you stop here?" "That's what I want to see. He made one the last time I was in Rome, and then I thought it my duty to disappear. Now I think it's my duty to stop and defend her." "My dear Touchett, your defensive powers--!" Lord Warburton began with a smile. But he saw something in his companion's face that checked him. "Your duty, in these premises, seems to me rather a nice question," he observed instead. Ralph for a short time answered nothing. "It's true that my defensive powers are small," he returned at last; "but as my aggressive ones are still smaller Osmond may after all not think me worth his gunpowder. At any rate," he added, "there are things I'm curious to see." "You're sacrificing your health to your curiosity then?" "I'm not much interested in my health, and I'm deeply interested in Mrs. Osmond." "So am I. But not as I once was," Lord Warburton added quickly. This was one of the allusions he had not hitherto found occasion to make. "Does she strike you as very happy?" Ralph enquired, emboldened by this confidence. "Well, I don't know; I've hardly thought. She told me the other night she was happy." "Ah, she told YOU, of course," Ralph exclaimed, smiling. "I don't know that. It seems to me I was rather the sort of person she might have complained to." "Complained? She'll never complain. She has done it--what she HAS done--and she knows it. She'll complain to you least of all. She's very careful." "She needn't be. I don't mean to make love to her again." "I'm delighted to hear it. There can be no doubt at least of YOUR duty." "Ah no," said Lord Warburton gravely; "none!" "Permit me to ask," Ralph went on, "whether it's to bring out the fact that you don't mean to make love to her that you're so very civil to the little girl?" Lord Warburton gave a slight start; he got up and stood before the fire, looking at it hard. "Does that strike you as very ridiculous?" "Ridiculous? Not in the least, if you really like her." "I think her a delightful little person. I don't know when a girl of that age has pleased me more." "She's a charming creature. Ah, she at least is genuine." "Of course there's the difference in our ages--more than twenty years." "My dear Warburton," said Ralph, "are you serious?" "Perfectly serious--as far as I've got." "I'm very glad. And, heaven help us," cried Ralph, "how cheered-up old Osmond will be!" His companion frowned. "I say, don't spoil it. I shouldn't propose for his daughter to please HIM." "He'll have the perversity to be pleased all the same." "He's not so fond of me as that," said his lordship. "As that? My dear Warburton, the drawback of your position is that people needn't be fond of you at all to wish to be connected with you. Now, with me in such a case, I should have the happy confidence that they loved me." Lord Warburton seemed scarcely in the mood for doing justice to general axioms--he was thinking of a special case. "Do you judge she'll be pleased?" "The girl herself? Delighted, surely." "No, no; I mean Mrs. Osmond." Ralph looked at him a moment. "My dear fellow, what has she to do with it?" "Whatever she chooses. She's very fond of Pansy." "Very true--very true." And Ralph slowly got up. "It's an interesting question--how far her fondness for Pansy will carry her." He stood there a moment with his hands in his pockets and rather a clouded brow. "I hope, you know, that you're very--very sure. The deuce!" he broke off. "I don't know how to say it." "Yes, you do; you know how to say everything." "Well, it's awkward. I hope you're sure that among Miss Osmond's merits her being--a--so near her stepmother isn't a leading one?" "Good heavens, Touchett!" cried Lord Warburton angrily, "for what do you take me?"

In this chapter, we get Ralph's view of Isabel's marriage: he feels that she wears a mask. He has a theory about her unhappiness and how she is only playing the part of a happy wife, but he knows that she would never tell him if this were the case. The relations between Ralph and Isabel have cooled significantly - they always feel somewhat formal, and Ralph notices a definite difference. He feels that Isabel will never forgive him for having insulted her husband. Ralph did manage to make it to the wedding. The ceremony was very small: only Countess Gemini, Mrs. Touchett and Pansy were there to witness it. Henrietta had been critical of Mr. Osmond as well, and Mr. Osmond did not like Henrietta. Mrs. Touchett had only formal and distant relations with Isabel, and she had also broken her friendship with Madame Merle. Madame Merle acted as if Mrs. Touchett had offended her, pretending that she had simply not noticed Isabel had felt affectionate towards Gilbert Osmond during their travels together. We learn that Isabel has had a child, but she has also lost it. The life she leads gives all the appearance of being a successful one: from the outside, there was nothing to gape at or criticize. Ralph though recognizes this appearance as the "hand of the master". He notices that Isabel acts in too exaggerated a manner sometimes, and that she seems less curious, more indifferent. He feels that Isabel gives the appearance of a fine lady who is supposed to represent something -- namely, Gilbert Osmond. He realizes that Osmond had never had material with which express himself, but he had patiently waited. Isabel now serves the function of that material. But even though such material is very fine, Ralph thinks to himself, the thing being represented is absolutely vulgar. Ralph realizes that Osmond had given the appearance of caring for intrinsic values, but in actual fact, he lived for what others thought of him. His purpose was to project an image of impertinence and mystification - to make the world feel as if he were superior to it. His ambition was not to please the world, but to please himself by exciting the world's curiosity and then declining to satisfy it," the narrator tells us of Ralph's theory about Osmond. Generally speaking Osmond does not seem to think Ralph is important enough to be disliked. However, once when Ralph stayed for too long in Rome, he knew that Osmond began to protest. Ralph then left so as not to disturb the relations between the couple. However, in a conversation with Lord Warburton, Ralph declares his intention to stay on, to see if Osmond will again protest. Also in this conversation, Lord Warburton and Ralph both intimate that they originally set upon their journey to see Isabel rather than to journey further south, as they had ostensibly planned to do. Ralph asks Warburton if he is trying to prove to Isabel that he does not intend to "make love to her" by showing interest in Pansy. Warburton wonders if Isabel will be pleased that he is showing interest in Pansy

summary

It will probably not surprise the reflective reader that Ralph Touchett should have seen less of his cousin since her marriage than he had done before that event--an event of which he took such a view as could hardly prove a confirmation of intimacy. He had uttered his thought, as we know, and after this had held his peace, Isabel not having invited him to resume a discussion which marked an era in their relations. That discussion had made a difference--the difference he feared rather than the one he hoped. It had not chilled the girl's zeal in carrying out her engagement, but it had come dangerously near to spoiling a friendship. No reference was ever again made between them to Ralph's opinion of Gilbert Osmond, and by surrounding this topic with a sacred silence they managed to preserve a semblance of reciprocal frankness. But there was a difference, as Ralph often said to himself--there was a difference. She had not forgiven him, she never would forgive him: that was all he had gained. She thought she had forgiven him; she believed she didn't care; and as she was both very generous and very proud these convictions represented a certain reality. But whether or no the event should justify him he would virtually have done her a wrong, and the wrong was of the sort that women remember best. As Osmond's wife she could never again be his friend. If in this character she should enjoy the felicity she expected, she would have nothing but contempt for the man who had attempted, in advance, to undermine a blessing so dear; and if on the other hand his warning should be justified the vow she had taken that he should never know it would lay upon her spirit such a burden as to make her hate him. So dismal had been, during the year that followed his cousin's marriage, Ralph's prevision of the future; and if his meditations appear morbid we must remember he was not in the bloom of health. He consoled himself as he might by behaving (as he deemed) beautifully, and was present at the ceremony by which Isabel was united to Mr. Osmond, and which was performed in Florence in the month of June. He learned from his mother that Isabel at first had thought of celebrating her nuptials in her native land, but that as simplicity was what she chiefly desired to secure she had finally decided, in spite of Osmond's professed willingness to make a journey of any length, that this characteristic would be best embodied in their being married by the nearest clergyman in the shortest time. The thing was done therefore at the little American chapel, on a very hot day, in the presence only of Mrs. Touchett and her son, of Pansy Osmond and the Countess Gemini. That severity in the proceedings of which I just spoke was in part the result of the absence of two persons who might have been looked for on the occasion and who would have lent it a certain richness. Madame Merle had been invited, but Madame Merle, who was unable to leave Rome, had written a gracious letter of excuses. Henrietta Stackpole had not been invited, as her departure from America, announced to Isabel by Mr. Goodwood, was in fact frustrated by the duties of her profession; but she had sent a letter, less gracious than Madame Merle's, intimating that, had she been able to cross the Atlantic, she would have been present not only as a witness but as a critic. Her return to Europe had taken place somewhat later, and she had effected a meeting with Isabel in the autumn, in Paris, when she had indulged--perhaps a trifle too freely--her critical genius. Poor Osmond, who was chiefly the subject of it, had protested so sharply that Henrietta was obliged to declare to Isabel that she had taken a step which put a barrier between them. "It isn't in the least that you've married--it is that you have married HIM," she had deemed it her duty to remark; agreeing, it will be seen, much more with Ralph Touchett than she suspected, though she had few of his hesitations and compunctions. Henrietta's second visit to Europe, however, was not apparently to have been made in vain; for just at the moment when Osmond had declared to Isabel that he really must object to that newspaper-woman, and Isabel had answered that it seemed to her he took Henrietta too hard, the good Mr. Bantling had appeared upon the scene and proposed that they should take a run down to Spain. Henrietta's letters from Spain had proved the most acceptable she had yet published, and there had been one in especial, dated from the Alhambra and entitled 'Moors and Moonlight,' which generally passed for her masterpiece. Isabel had been secretly disappointed at her husband's not seeing his way simply to take the poor girl for funny. She even wondered if his sense of fun, or of the funny--which would be his sense of humour, wouldn't it?--were by chance defective. Of course she herself looked at the matter as a person whose present happiness had nothing to grudge to Henrietta's violated conscience. Osmond had thought their alliance a kind of monstrosity; he couldn't imagine what they had in common. For him, Mr. Bantling's fellow tourist was simply the most vulgar of women, and he had also pronounced her the most abandoned. Against this latter clause of the verdict Isabel had appealed with an ardour that had made him wonder afresh at the oddity of some of his wife's tastes. Isabel could explain it only by saying that she liked to know people who were as different as possible from herself. "Why then don't you make the acquaintance of your washerwoman?" Osmond had enquired; to which Isabel had answered that she was afraid her washerwoman wouldn't care for her. Now Henrietta cared so much. Ralph had seen nothing of her for the greater part of the two years that had followed her marriage; the winter that formed the beginning of her residence in Rome he had spent again at San Remo, where he had been joined in the spring by his mother, who afterwards had gone with him to England, to see what they were doing at the bank--an operation she couldn't induce him to perform. Ralph had taken a lease of his house at San Remo, a small villa which he had occupied still another winter; but late in the month of April of this second year he had come down to Rome. It was the first time since her marriage that he had stood face to face with Isabel; his desire to see her again was then of the keenest. She had written to him from time to time, but her letters told him nothing he wanted to know. He had asked his mother what she was making of her life, and his mother had simply answered that she supposed she was making the best of it. Mrs. Touchett had not the imagination that communes with the unseen, and she now pretended to no intimacy with her niece, whom she rarely encountered. This young woman appeared to be living in a sufficiently honourable way, but Mrs. Touchett still remained of the opinion that her marriage had been a shabby affair. It had given her no pleasure to think of Isabel's establishment, which she was sure was a very lame business. From time to time, in Florence, she rubbed against the Countess Gemini, doing her best always to minimise the contact; and the Countess reminded her of Osmond, who made her think of Isabel. The Countess was less talked of in these days; but Mrs. Touchett augured no good of that: it only proved how she had been talked of before. There was a more direct suggestion of Isabel in the person of Madame Merle; but Madame Merle's relations with Mrs. Touchett had undergone a perceptible change. Isabel's aunt had told her, without circumlocution, that she had played too ingenious a part; and Madame Merle, who never quarrelled with any one, who appeared to think no one worth it, and who had performed the miracle of living, more or less, for several years with Mrs. Touchett and showing no symptom of irritation--Madame Merle now took a very high tone and declared that this was an accusation from which she couldn't stoop to defend herself. She added, however (without stooping), that her behaviour had been only too simple, that she had believed only what she saw, that she saw Isabel was not eager to marry and Osmond not eager to please (his repeated visits had been nothing; he was boring himself to death on his hill-top and he came merely for amusement). Isabel had kept her sentiments to herself, and her journey to Greece and Egypt had effectually thrown dust in her companion's eyes. Madame Merle accepted the event--she was unprepared to think of it as a scandal; but that she had played any part in it, double or single, was an imputation against which she proudly protested. It was doubtless in consequence of Mrs. Touchett's attitude, and of the injury it offered to habits consecrated by many charming seasons, that Madame Merle had, after this, chosen to pass many months in England, where her credit was quite unimpaired. Mrs. Touchett had done her a wrong; there are some things that can't be forgiven. But Madame Merle suffered in silence; there was always something exquisite in her dignity. Ralph, as I say, had wished to see for himself; but while engaged in this pursuit he had yet felt afresh what a fool he had been to put the girl on her guard. He had played the wrong card, and now he had lost the game. He should see nothing, he should learn nothing; for him she would always wear a mask. His true line would have been to profess delight in her union, so that later, when, as Ralph phrased it, the bottom should fall out of it, she might have the pleasure of saying to him that he had been a goose. He would gladly have consented to pass for a goose in order to know Isabel's real situation. At present, however, she neither taunted him with his fallacies nor pretended that her own confidence was justified; if she wore a mask it completely covered her face. There was something fixed and mechanical in the serenity painted on it; this was not an expression, Ralph said--it was a representation, it was even an advertisement. She had lost her child; that was a sorrow, but it was a sorrow she scarcely spoke of; there was more to say about it than she could say to Ralph. It belonged to the past, moreover; it had occurred six months before and she had already laid aside the tokens of mourning. She appeared to be leading the life of the world; Ralph heard her spoken of as having a "charming position." He observed that she produced the impression of being peculiarly enviable, that it was supposed, among many people, to be a privilege even to know her. Her house was not open to every one, and she had an evening in the week to which people were not invited as a matter of course. She lived with a certain magnificence, but you needed to be a member of her circle to perceive it; for there was nothing to gape at, nothing to criticise, nothing even to admire, in the daily proceedings of Mr. and Mrs. Osmond. Ralph, in all this, recognised the hand of the master; for he knew that Isabel had no faculty for producing studied impressions. She struck him as having a great love of movement, of gaiety, of late hours, of long rides, of fatigue; an eagerness to be entertained, to be interested, even to be bored, to make acquaintances, to see people who were talked about, to explore the neighbourhood of Rome, to enter into relation with certain of the mustiest relics of its old society. In all this there was much less discrimination than in that desire for comprehensiveness of development on which he had been used to exercise his wit. There was a kind of violence in some of her impulses, of crudity in some of her experiments, which took him by surprise: it seemed to him that she even spoke faster, moved faster, breathed faster, than before her marriage. Certainly she had fallen into exaggerations--she who used to care so much for the pure truth; and whereas of old she had a great delight in good-humoured argument, in intellectual play (she never looked so charming as when in the genial heat of discussion she received a crushing blow full in the face and brushed it away as a feather), she appeared now to think there was nothing worth people's either differing about or agreeing upon. Of old she had been curious, and now she was indifferent, and yet in spite of her indifference her activity was greater than ever. Slender still, but lovelier than before, she had gained no great maturity of aspect; yet there was an amplitude and a brilliancy in her personal arrangements that gave a touch of insolence to her beauty. Poor human-hearted Isabel, what perversity had bitten her? Her light step drew a mass of drapery behind it; her intelligent head sustained a majesty of ornament. The free, keen girl had become quite another person; what he saw was the fine lady who was supposed to represent something. What did Isabel represent? Ralph asked himself; and he could only answer by saying that she represented Gilbert Osmond. "Good heavens, what a function!" he then woefully exclaimed. He was lost in wonder at the mystery of things. He recognised Osmond, as I say; he recognised him at every turn. He saw how he kept all things within limits; how he adjusted, regulated, animated their manner of life. Osmond was in his element; at last he had material to work with. He always had an eye to effect, and his effects were deeply calculated. They were produced by no vulgar means, but the motive was as vulgar as the art was great. To surround his interior with a sort of invidious sanctity, to tantalise society with a sense of exclusion, to make people believe his house was different from every other, to impart to the face that he presented to the world a cold originality--this was the ingenious effort of the personage to whom Isabel had attributed a superior morality. "He works with superior material," Ralph said to himself; "it's rich abundance compared with his former resources." Ralph was a clever man; but Ralph had never--to his own sense--been so clever as when he observed, in petto, that under the guise of caring only for intrinsic values Osmond lived exclusively for the world. 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. His tastes, his studies, his accomplishments, his collections, were all for a purpose. His life on his hill-top at Florence had been the conscious attitude of years. His solitude, his ennui, his love for his daughter, his good manners, his bad manners, were so many features of a mental image constantly present to him as a model of impertinence and mystification. His ambition was not to please the world, but to please himself by exciting the world's curiosity and then declining to satisfy it. It had made him feel great, ever, to play the world a trick. The thing he had done in his life most directly to please himself was his marrying Miss Archer; though in this case indeed the gullible world was in a manner embodied in poor Isabel, who had been mystified to the top of her bent. Ralph of course found a fitness in being consistent; he had embraced a creed, and as he had suffered for it he could not in honour forsake it. I give this little sketch of its articles for what they may at the time have been worth. It was certain that he was very skilful in fitting the facts to his theory--even the fact that during the month he spent in Rome at this period the husband of the woman he loved appeared to regard him not in the least as an enemy. For Gilbert Osmond Ralph had not now that importance. It was not that he had the importance of a friend; it was rather that he had none at all. He was Isabel's cousin and he was rather unpleasantly ill--it was on this basis that Osmond treated with him. He made the proper enquiries, asked about his health, about Mrs. Touchett, about his opinion of winter climates, whether he were comfortable at his hotel. He addressed him, on the few occasions of their meeting, not a word that was not necessary; but his manner had always the urbanity proper to conscious success in the presence of conscious failure. For all this, Ralph had had, toward the end, a sharp inward vision of Osmond's making it of small ease to his wife that she should continue to receive Mr. Touchett. He was not jealous--he had not that excuse; no one could be jealous of Ralph. But he made Isabel pay for her old-time kindness, of which so much was still left; and as Ralph had no idea of her paying too much, so when his suspicion had become sharp, he had taken himself off. In doing so he had deprived Isabel of a very interesting occupation: she had been constantly wondering what fine principle was keeping him alive. She had decided that it was his love of conversation; his conversation had been better than ever. He had given up walking; he was no longer a humorous stroller. He sat all day in a chair--almost any chair would serve, and was so dependent on what you would do for him that, had not his talk been highly contemplative, you might have thought he was blind. The reader already knows more about him than Isabel was ever to know, and the reader may therefore be given the key to the mystery. What kept Ralph alive was simply the fact that he had not yet seen enough of the person in the world in whom he was most interested: he was not yet satisfied. There was more to come; he couldn't make up his mind to lose that. He wanted to see what she would make of her husband--or what her husband would make of her. This was only the first act of the drama, and he was determined to sit out the performance. His determination had held good; it had kept him going some eighteen months more, till the time of his return to Rome with Lord Warburton. It had given him indeed such an air of intending to live indefinitely that Mrs. Touchett, though more accessible to confusions of thought in the matter of this strange, unremunerative--and unremunerated--son of hers than she had ever been before, had, as we have learned, not scrupled to embark for a distant land. If Ralph had been kept alive by suspense it was with a good deal of the same emotion--the excitement of wondering in what state she should find him--that Isabel mounted to his apartment the day after Lord Warburton had notified her of his arrival in Rome. She spent an hour with him; it was the first of several visits. Gilbert Osmond called on him punctually, and on their sending their carriage for him Ralph came more than once to Palazzo Roccanera. A fortnight elapsed, at the end of which Ralph announced to Lord Warburton that he thought after all he wouldn't go to Sicily. The two men had been dining together after a day spent by the latter in ranging about the Campagna. They had left the table, and Warburton, before the chimney, was lighting a cigar, which he instantly removed from his lips. "Won't go to Sicily? Where then will you go?" "Well, I guess I won't go anywhere," said Ralph, from the sofa, all shamelessly. "Do you mean you'll return to England?" "Oh dear no; I'll stay in Rome." "Rome won't do for you. Rome's not warm enough." "It will have to do. I'll make it do. See how well I've been." Lord Warburton looked at him a while, puffing a cigar and as if trying to see it. "You've been better than you were on the journey, certainly. I wonder how you lived through that. But I don't understand your condition. I recommend you to try Sicily." "I can't try," said poor Ralph. "I've done trying. I can't move further. I can't face that journey. Fancy me between Scylla and Charybdis! I don't want to die on the Sicilian plains--to be snatched away, like Proserpine in the same locality, to the Plutonian shades." "What the deuce then did you come for?" his lordship enquired. "Because the idea took me. I see it won't do. It really doesn't matter where I am now. I've exhausted all remedies, I've swallowed all climates. As I'm here I'll stay. I haven't a single cousin in Sicily--much less a married one." "Your cousin's certainly an inducement. But what does the doctor say?" "I haven't asked him, and I don't care a fig. If I die here Mrs. Osmond will bury me. But I shall not die here." "I hope not." Lord Warburton continued to smoke reflectively. "Well, I must say," he resumed, "for myself I'm very glad you don't insist on Sicily. I had a horror of that journey." "Ah, but for you it needn't have mattered. I had no idea of dragging you in my train." "I certainly didn't mean to let you go alone." "My dear Warburton, I never expected you to come further than this," Ralph cried. "I should have gone with you and seen you settled," said Lord Warburton. "You're a very good Christian. You're a very kind man." "Then I should have come back here." "And then you'd have gone to England." "No, no; I should have stayed." "Well," said Ralph, "if that's what we are both up to, I don't see where Sicily comes in!" His companion was silent; he sat staring at the fire. At last, looking up, "I say, tell me this," he broke out; "did you really mean to go to Sicily when we started?" "Ah, vous m'en demandez trop! Let me put a question first. Did you come with me quite--platonically?" "I don't know what you mean by that. I wanted to come abroad." "I suspect we've each been playing our little game." "Speak for yourself. I made no secret whatever of my desiring to be here a while." "Yes, I remember you said you wished to see the Minister of Foreign Affairs." "I've seen him three times. He's very amusing." "I think you've forgotten what you came for," said Ralph. "Perhaps I have," his companion answered rather gravely. These two were gentlemen of a race which is not distinguished by the absence of reserve, and they had travelled together from London to Rome without an allusion to matters that were uppermost in the mind of each. There was an old subject they had once discussed, but it had lost its recognised place in their attention, and even after their arrival in Rome, where many things led back to it, they had kept the same half-diffident, half-confident silence. "I recommend you to get the doctor's consent, all the same," Lord Warburton went on, abruptly, after an interval. "The doctor's consent will spoil it. I never have it when I can help it." "What then does Mrs. Osmond think?" Ralph's friend demanded. "I've not told her. She'll probably say that Rome's too cold and even offer to go with me to Catania. She's capable of that." "In your place I should like it." "Her husband won't like it." "Ah well, I can fancy that; though it seems to me you're not bound to mind his likings. They're his affair." "I don't want to make any more trouble between them," said Ralph. "Is there so much already?" "There's complete preparation for it. Her going off with me would make the explosion. Osmond isn't fond of his wife's cousin." "Then of course he'd make a row. But won't he make a row if you stop here?" "That's what I want to see. He made one the last time I was in Rome, and then I thought it my duty to disappear. Now I think it's my duty to stop and defend her." "My dear Touchett, your defensive powers--!" Lord Warburton began with a smile. But he saw something in his companion's face that checked him. "Your duty, in these premises, seems to me rather a nice question," he observed instead. Ralph for a short time answered nothing. "It's true that my defensive powers are small," he returned at last; "but as my aggressive ones are still smaller Osmond may after all not think me worth his gunpowder. At any rate," he added, "there are things I'm curious to see." "You're sacrificing your health to your curiosity then?" "I'm not much interested in my health, and I'm deeply interested in Mrs. Osmond." "So am I. But not as I once was," Lord Warburton added quickly. This was one of the allusions he had not hitherto found occasion to make. "Does she strike you as very happy?" Ralph enquired, emboldened by this confidence. "Well, I don't know; I've hardly thought. She told me the other night she was happy." "Ah, she told YOU, of course," Ralph exclaimed, smiling. "I don't know that. It seems to me I was rather the sort of person she might have complained to." "Complained? She'll never complain. She has done it--what she HAS done--and she knows it. She'll complain to you least of all. She's very careful." "She needn't be. I don't mean to make love to her again." "I'm delighted to hear it. There can be no doubt at least of YOUR duty." "Ah no," said Lord Warburton gravely; "none!" "Permit me to ask," Ralph went on, "whether it's to bring out the fact that you don't mean to make love to her that you're so very civil to the little girl?" Lord Warburton gave a slight start; he got up and stood before the fire, looking at it hard. "Does that strike you as very ridiculous?" "Ridiculous? Not in the least, if you really like her." "I think her a delightful little person. I don't know when a girl of that age has pleased me more." "She's a charming creature. Ah, she at least is genuine." "Of course there's the difference in our ages--more than twenty years." "My dear Warburton," said Ralph, "are you serious?" "Perfectly serious--as far as I've got." "I'm very glad. And, heaven help us," cried Ralph, "how cheered-up old Osmond will be!" His companion frowned. "I say, don't spoil it. I shouldn't propose for his daughter to please HIM." "He'll have the perversity to be pleased all the same." "He's not so fond of me as that," said his lordship. "As that? My dear Warburton, the drawback of your position is that people needn't be fond of you at all to wish to be connected with you. Now, with me in such a case, I should have the happy confidence that they loved me." Lord Warburton seemed scarcely in the mood for doing justice to general axioms--he was thinking of a special case. "Do you judge she'll be pleased?" "The girl herself? Delighted, surely." "No, no; I mean Mrs. Osmond." Ralph looked at him a moment. "My dear fellow, what has she to do with it?" "Whatever she chooses. She's very fond of Pansy." "Very true--very true." And Ralph slowly got up. "It's an interesting question--how far her fondness for Pansy will carry her." He stood there a moment with his hands in his pockets and rather a clouded brow. "I hope, you know, that you're very--very sure. The deuce!" he broke off. "I don't know how to say it." "Yes, you do; you know how to say everything." "Well, it's awkward. I hope you're sure that among Miss Osmond's merits her being--a--so near her stepmother isn't a leading one?" "Good heavens, Touchett!" cried Lord Warburton angrily, "for what do you take me?"

Many years have passed once Chapter 36 opens. It is an interesting technical choice on the part of James to begin this second part of his novel through the third-person point of view of Edward Rosier. Edward is not exactly an admirable character, and the narrator points out that his vision of Pansy is inaccurate. He also seems to resemble Osmond in subtle ways: they are both collectors, and they both have a habit of comparing persons of value to objects of value. He also believes that his own taste is quite accurately the only aesthetic standard - although it differs from Osmond's. In other words, his perspective is certainly not characterized by the perspicacity of others. Why then does James choose to introduce the story through his eyes? One answer might be that Edward is an example of James' technique of the "ficelle" - a character who is two-dimensional and is used merely to move the action of the story along. It is James' way of economically summarizing what the relationship between Osmond and Isabel has turned out to be. As James once famously said, "Really, universally, relations stop nowhere, and the exquisite problem of the artist is eternally but to draw, by a geometry of his own, the circle within which they shall happily appear to do so" . It is not until Chapter 40 that we get a peek into Isabel's world. Instead, Ralph's analysis in Chapter 39 of the situation paints a bleak picture for us. Ralph still believes Osmond is selfish and vulgar, and he believes that he has reduced Isabel to the function of being a "representative" of his own lack of values. It is interesting to pause over what is meant by an "intrinsic value" as opposed to Osmond's true values. Osmond cares what other people think of him, by Ralph's theory -- he cares how he appears to the world. He cares about his reputation and about having the means to show himself off in the world. But, the question is: does anyone else have an intrinsic value in this novel? Isabel is valuable, as James has explained in the preface, because others think she is interesting. This too is a value gained because of the opinion of others. Furthermore, a comparison can be made between Henry James as the author and Gilbert Osmond as the manipulative husband: Henry James also enjoyed financial success from "using" Isabel Archer to represent his own ideas. What is the intrinsic value of the novel itself? Is it supposed to be a representation of the author's ideas, or is it valuable for some other reason? This question is being posed in a meta-fictional sense. Can we really detach the idea of "intrinsic value" from values for others -- isn't value, after all, a social phenomenon?

analysis

Osmond touched on this matter that evening for the first time; coming very late into the drawing-room, where she was sitting alone. They had spent the evening at home, and Pansy had gone to bed; he himself had been sitting since dinner in a small apartment in which he had arranged his books and which he called his study. At ten o'clock Lord Warburton had come in, as he always did when he knew from Isabel that she was to be at home; he was going somewhere else and he sat for half an hour. Isabel, after asking him for news of Ralph, said very little to him, on purpose; she wished him to talk with her stepdaughter. She pretended to read; she even went after a little to the piano; she asked herself if she mightn't leave the room. She had come little by little to think well of the idea of Pansy's becoming the wife of the master of beautiful Lockleigh, though at first it had not presented itself in a manner to excite her enthusiasm. Madame Merle, that afternoon, had applied the match to an accumulation of inflammable material. When Isabel was unhappy she always looked about her--partly from impulse and partly by theory--for some form of positive exertion. She could never rid herself of the sense that unhappiness was a state of disease--of suffering as opposed to doing. To "do"--it hardly mattered what--would therefore be an escape, perhaps in some degree a remedy. Besides, she wished to convince herself that she had done everything possible to content her husband; she was determined not to be haunted by visions of his wife's limpness under appeal. It would please him greatly to see Pansy married to an English nobleman, and justly please him, since this nobleman was so sound a character. It seemed to Isabel that if she could make it her duty to bring about such an event she should play the part of a good wife. She wanted to be that; she wanted to be able to believe sincerely, and with proof of it, that she had been that. Then such an undertaking had other recommendations. It would occupy her, and she desired occupation. It would even amuse her, and if she could really amuse herself she perhaps might be saved. Lastly, it would be a service to Lord Warburton, who evidently pleased himself greatly with the charming girl. It was a little "weird" he should--being what he was; but there was no accounting for such impressions. Pansy might captivate any one--any one at least but Lord Warburton. Isabel would have thought her too small, too slight, perhaps even too artificial for that. There was always a little of the doll about her, and that was not what he had been looking for. Still, who could say what men ever were looking for? They looked for what they found; they knew what pleased them only when they saw it. No theory was valid in such matters, and nothing was more unaccountable or more natural than anything else. If he had cared for HER it might seem odd he should care for Pansy, who was so different; but he had not cared for her so much as he had supposed. Or if he had, he had completely got over it, and it was natural that, as that affair had failed, he should think something of quite another sort might succeed. Enthusiasm, as I say, had not come at first to Isabel, but it came to-day and made her feel almost happy. It was astonishing what happiness she could still find in the idea of procuring a pleasure for her husband. It was a pity, however, that Edward Rosier had crossed their path! At this reflection the light that had suddenly gleamed upon that path lost something of its brightness. Isabel was unfortunately as sure that Pansy thought Mr. Rosier the nicest of all the young men--as sure as if she had held an interview with her on the subject. It was very tiresome she should be so sure, when she had carefully abstained from informing herself; almost as tiresome as that poor Mr. Rosier should have taken it into his own head. He was certainly very inferior to Lord Warburton. It was not the difference in fortune so much as the difference in the men; the young American was really so light a weight. He was much more of the type of the useless fine gentleman than the English nobleman. It was true that there was no particular reason why Pansy should marry a statesman; still, if a statesman admired her, that was his affair, and she would make a perfect little pearl of a peeress. It may seem to the reader that Mrs. Osmond had grown of a sudden strangely cynical, for she ended by saying to herself that this difficulty could probably be arranged. An impediment that was embodied in poor Rosier could not anyhow present itself as a dangerous one; there were always means of levelling secondary obstacles. Isabel was perfectly aware that she had not taken the measure of Pansy's tenacity, which might prove to be inconveniently great; but she inclined to see her as rather letting go, under suggestion, than as clutching under deprecation--since she had certainly the faculty of assent developed in a very much higher degree than that of protest. She would cling, yes, she would cling; but it really mattered to her very little what she clung to. Lord Warburton would do as well as Mr. Rosier--especially as she seemed quite to like him; she had expressed this sentiment to Isabel without a single reservation; she had said she thought his conversation most interesting--he had told her all about India. His manner to Pansy had been of the rightest and easiest--Isabel noticed that for herself, as she also observed that he talked to her not in the least in a patronising way, reminding himself of her youth and simplicity, but quite as if she understood his subjects with that sufficiency with which she followed those of the fashionable operas. This went far enough for attention to the music and the barytone. He was careful only to be kind--he was as kind as he had been to another fluttered young chit at Gardencourt. A girl might well be touched by that; she remembered how she herself had been touched, and said to herself that if she had been as simple as Pansy the impression would have been deeper still. She had not been simple when she refused him; that operation had been as complicated as, later, her acceptance of Osmond had been. Pansy, however, in spite of HER simplicity, really did understand, and was glad that Lord Warburton should talk to her, not about her partners and bouquets, but about the state of Italy, the condition of the peasantry, the famous grist-tax, the pellagra, his impressions of Roman society. She looked at him, as she drew her needle through her tapestry, with sweet submissive eyes, and when she lowered them she gave little quiet oblique glances at his person, his hands, his feet, his clothes, as if she were considering him. Even his person, Isabel might have reminded her, was better than Mr. Rosier's. But Isabel contented herself at such moments with wondering where this gentleman was; he came no more at all to Palazzo Roccanera. It was surprising, as I say, the hold it had taken of her--the idea of assisting her husband to be pleased. It was surprising for a variety of reasons which I shall presently touch upon. On the evening I speak of, while Lord Warburton sat there, she had been on the point of taking the great step of going out of the room and leaving her companions alone. I say the great step, because it was in this light that Gilbert Osmond would have regarded it, and Isabel was trying as much as possible to take her husband's view. She succeeded after a fashion, but she fell short of the point I mention. After all she couldn't rise to it; something held her and made this impossible. It was not exactly that it would be base or insidious; for women as a general thing practise such manoeuvres with a perfectly good conscience, and Isabel was instinctively much more true than false to the common genius of her sex. There was a vague doubt that interposed--a sense that she was not quite sure. So she remained in the drawing-room, and after a while Lord Warburton went off to his party, of which he promised to give Pansy a full account on the morrow. After he had gone she wondered if she had prevented something which would have happened if she had absented herself for a quarter of an hour; and then she pronounced--always mentally--that when their distinguished visitor should wish her to go away he would easily find means to let her know it. Pansy said nothing whatever about him after he had gone, and Isabel studiously said nothing, as she had taken a vow of reserve until after he should have declared himself. He was a little longer in coming to this than might seem to accord with the description he had given Isabel of his feelings. Pansy went to bed, and Isabel had to admit that she could not now guess what her stepdaughter was thinking of. Her transparent little companion was for the moment not to be seen through. She remained alone, looking at the fire, until, at the end of half an hour, her husband came in. He moved about a while in silence and then sat down; he looked at the fire like herself. But she now had transferred her eyes from the flickering flame in the chimney to Osmond's face, and she watched him while he kept his silence. Covert observation had become a habit with her; an instinct, of which it is not an exaggeration to say that it was allied to that of self-defence, had made it habitual. She wished as much as possible to know his thoughts, to know what he would say, beforehand, so that she might prepare her answer. Preparing answers had not been her strong point of old; she had rarely in this respect got further than thinking afterwards of clever things she might have said. But she had learned caution--learned it in a measure from her husband's very countenance. It was the same face she had looked into with eyes equally earnest perhaps, but less penetrating, on the terrace of a Florentine villa; except that Osmond had grown slightly stouter since his marriage. He still, however, might strike one as very distinguished. "Has Lord Warburton been here?" he presently asked. "Yes, he stayed half an hour." "Did he see Pansy?" "Yes; he sat on the sofa beside her." "Did he talk with her much?" "He talked almost only to her." "It seems to me he's attentive. Isn't that what you call it?" "I don't call it anything," said Isabel; "I've waited for you to give it a name." "That's a consideration you don't always show," Osmond answered after a moment. "I've determined, this time, to try and act as you'd like. I've so often failed of that." Osmond turned his head slowly, looking at her. "Are you trying to quarrel with me?" "No, I'm trying to live at peace." "Nothing's more easy; you know I don't quarrel myself." "What do you call it when you try to make me angry?" Isabel asked. "I don't try; if I've done so it has been the most natural thing in the world. Moreover I'm not in the least trying now." Isabel smiled. "It doesn't matter. I've determined never to be angry again." "That's an excellent resolve. Your temper isn't good." "No--it's not good." She pushed away the book she had been reading and took up the band of tapestry Pansy had left on the table. "That's partly why I've not spoken to you about this business of my daughter's," Osmond said, designating Pansy in the manner that was most frequent with him. "I was afraid I should encounter opposition--that you too would have views on the subject. I've sent little Rosier about his business." "You were afraid I'd plead for Mr. Rosier? Haven't you noticed that I've never spoken to you of him?" "I've never given you a chance. We've so little conversation in these days. I know he was an old friend of yours." "Yes; he's an old friend of mine." Isabel cared little more for him than for the tapestry that she held in her hand; but it was true that he was an old friend and that with her husband she felt a desire not to extenuate such ties. 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's fortunate," Osmond observed. "Fortunate for me, I suppose you mean. For him it matters little." "There's no use talking of him," Osmond said. "As I tell you, I've turned him out." "Yes; but a lover outside's always a lover. He's sometimes even more of one. Mr. Rosier still has hope." "He's welcome to the comfort of it! My daughter has only to sit perfectly quiet to become Lady Warburton." "Should you like that?" Isabel asked with a simplicity which was not so affected as it may appear. She was resolved to assume nothing, for Osmond had a way of unexpectedly turning her assumptions against her. The intensity with which he would like his daughter to become Lady Warburton had been the very basis of her own recent reflections. But that was for herself; she would recognise nothing until Osmond should have put it into words; she would not take for granted with him that he thought Lord Warburton a prize worth an amount of effort that was unusual among the Osmonds. It was Gilbert's constant intimation that for him nothing in life was a prize; that he treated as from equal to equal with the most distinguished people in the world, and that his daughter had only to look about her to pick out a prince. It cost him therefore a lapse from consistency to say explicitly that he yearned for Lord Warburton and that if this nobleman should escape his equivalent might not be found; with which moreover it was another of his customary implications that he was never inconsistent. He would have liked his wife to glide over the point. But strangely enough, now that she was face to face with him and although an hour before she had almost invented a scheme for pleasing him, Isabel was not accommodating, would not glide. And yet she knew exactly the effect on his mind of her question: it would operate as an humiliation. Never mind; he was terribly capable of humiliating her--all the more so that he was also capable of waiting for great opportunities and of showing sometimes an almost unaccountable indifference to small ones. Isabel perhaps took a small opportunity because she would not have availed herself of a great one. Osmond at present acquitted himself very honourably. "I should like it extremely; it would be a great marriage. And then Lord Warburton has another advantage: he's an old friend of yours. It would be pleasant for him to come into the family. It's very odd Pansy's admirers should all be your old friends." "It's natural that they should come to see me. In coming to see me they see Pansy. Seeing her it's natural they should fall in love with her." "So I think. But you're not bound to do so." "If she should marry Lord Warburton I should be very glad," Isabel went on frankly. "He's an excellent man. You say, however, that she has only to sit perfectly still. Perhaps she won't sit perfectly still. If she loses Mr. Rosier she may jump up!" Osmond appeared to give no heed to this; he sat gazing at the fire. "Pansy would like to be a great lady," he remarked in a moment with a certain tenderness of tone. "She wishes above all to please," he added. "To please Mr. Rosier, perhaps." "No, to please me." "Me too a little, I think," said Isabel. "Yes, she has a great opinion of you. But she'll do what I like." "If you're sure of that, it's very well," she went on. "Meantime," said Osmond, "I should like our distinguished visitor to speak." "He has spoken--to me. He has told me it would be a great pleasure to him to believe she could care for him." Osmond turned his head quickly, but at first he said nothing. Then, "Why didn't you tell me that?" he asked sharply. "There was no opportunity. You know how we live. I've taken the first chance that has offered." "Did you speak to him of Rosier?" "Oh yes, a little." "That was hardly necessary." "I thought it best he should know, so that, so that--" And Isabel paused. "So that what?" "So that he might act accordingly." "So that he might back out, do you mean?" "No, so that he might advance while there's yet time." "That's not the effect it seems to have had." "You should have patience," said Isabel. "You know Englishmen are shy." "This one's not. He was not when he made love to YOU." She had been afraid Osmond would speak of that; it was disagreeable to her. "I beg your pardon; he was extremely so," she returned. He answered nothing for some time; he took up a book and fingered the pages while she sat silent and occupied herself with Pansy's tapestry. "You must have a great deal of influence with him," Osmond went on at last. "The moment you really wish it you can bring him to the point." This was more offensive still; but she felt the great naturalness of his saying it, and it was after all extremely like what she had said to herself. "Why should I have influence?" she asked. "What have I ever done to put him under an obligation to me?" "You refused to marry him," said Osmond with his eyes on his book. "I must not presume too much on that," she replied. He threw down the book presently and got up, standing before the fire with his hands behind him. "Well, I hold that it lies in your hands. I shall leave it there. With a little good-will you may manage it. Think that over and remember how much I count on you." He waited a little, to give her time to answer; but she answered nothing, and he presently strolled out of the room.

Isabel is not excited by the idea of Pansy and Lord Warburton marrying initially, but she allows the idea to settle in her mind. She realizes that she would be acting her part as a good wife if she were to assist the match in being made. Yet, she is also surprised that Lord Warburton would be attracted to Pansy -- for Pansy is very different from Isabel herself. She thinks of Pansy as small, an innocent but limited creature. Nevertheless, Isabel contents herself with the idea of providing a service for her husband. Of course, Isabel thinks to herself, Edward Rosier presents a problem. Isabel had tried not to inform herself of Pansy's feelings for Mr. Rosier, but she finds that she knows that Pansy thinks the world of him. She wonders how tenacious Pansy will be in clinging to her idea of Edward Rosier - Isabel then begins to believe that Pansy could cling to just anything. Isabel after all thinks more highly of Lord Warburton than Edward Rosier. This scene within Isabel's mind takes place as Isabel is having another of her Thursday gatherings. Lord Warburton is there, speaking with Pansy. Isabel knows that if she leaves the two alone in a room together, Lord Warburton may declare his feelings for Pansy and set in motion a proposal. But she hesitates to do this act that would please her husband. Lord Warburton ends up leaving for the night without a moment alone with Pansy. Isabel then sits alone in a room staring at the fire. Her husband enters the room, and asks about Lord Warburton's interest in Pansy. Isabel says she has been waiting for Osmond to give it a name. The narrator tells us that Isabel has decided not to take it for granted that her husband would like Lord Warburton -- and further, she is motivated by the thought that Osmond's declaring a desire to see Lord Warburton propose would show that Osmond did in fact want something from the world. She thinks it is his constant intimation that he wants nothing of the world - that nothing could be good enough for him. Thus his declaration of a desire for a proposal from Lord Warburton would be a lapse in consistency. Isabel then also thinks to herself that her husband may very well decide to take this opportunity to humiliate Isabel. Osmond behaves well on this occasion though. He simply asks Isabel to help along the match. He then suggests to Isabel that she can make Lord Warburton do whatever she would like him to do - and that she should use this influence to make him marry Pansy

summary

Osmond touched on this matter that evening for the first time; coming very late into the drawing-room, where she was sitting alone. They had spent the evening at home, and Pansy had gone to bed; he himself had been sitting since dinner in a small apartment in which he had arranged his books and which he called his study. At ten o'clock Lord Warburton had come in, as he always did when he knew from Isabel that she was to be at home; he was going somewhere else and he sat for half an hour. Isabel, after asking him for news of Ralph, said very little to him, on purpose; she wished him to talk with her stepdaughter. She pretended to read; she even went after a little to the piano; she asked herself if she mightn't leave the room. She had come little by little to think well of the idea of Pansy's becoming the wife of the master of beautiful Lockleigh, though at first it had not presented itself in a manner to excite her enthusiasm. Madame Merle, that afternoon, had applied the match to an accumulation of inflammable material. When Isabel was unhappy she always looked about her--partly from impulse and partly by theory--for some form of positive exertion. She could never rid herself of the sense that unhappiness was a state of disease--of suffering as opposed to doing. To "do"--it hardly mattered what--would therefore be an escape, perhaps in some degree a remedy. Besides, she wished to convince herself that she had done everything possible to content her husband; she was determined not to be haunted by visions of his wife's limpness under appeal. It would please him greatly to see Pansy married to an English nobleman, and justly please him, since this nobleman was so sound a character. It seemed to Isabel that if she could make it her duty to bring about such an event she should play the part of a good wife. She wanted to be that; she wanted to be able to believe sincerely, and with proof of it, that she had been that. Then such an undertaking had other recommendations. It would occupy her, and she desired occupation. It would even amuse her, and if she could really amuse herself she perhaps might be saved. Lastly, it would be a service to Lord Warburton, who evidently pleased himself greatly with the charming girl. It was a little "weird" he should--being what he was; but there was no accounting for such impressions. Pansy might captivate any one--any one at least but Lord Warburton. Isabel would have thought her too small, too slight, perhaps even too artificial for that. There was always a little of the doll about her, and that was not what he had been looking for. Still, who could say what men ever were looking for? They looked for what they found; they knew what pleased them only when they saw it. No theory was valid in such matters, and nothing was more unaccountable or more natural than anything else. If he had cared for HER it might seem odd he should care for Pansy, who was so different; but he had not cared for her so much as he had supposed. Or if he had, he had completely got over it, and it was natural that, as that affair had failed, he should think something of quite another sort might succeed. Enthusiasm, as I say, had not come at first to Isabel, but it came to-day and made her feel almost happy. It was astonishing what happiness she could still find in the idea of procuring a pleasure for her husband. It was a pity, however, that Edward Rosier had crossed their path! At this reflection the light that had suddenly gleamed upon that path lost something of its brightness. Isabel was unfortunately as sure that Pansy thought Mr. Rosier the nicest of all the young men--as sure as if she had held an interview with her on the subject. It was very tiresome she should be so sure, when she had carefully abstained from informing herself; almost as tiresome as that poor Mr. Rosier should have taken it into his own head. He was certainly very inferior to Lord Warburton. It was not the difference in fortune so much as the difference in the men; the young American was really so light a weight. He was much more of the type of the useless fine gentleman than the English nobleman. It was true that there was no particular reason why Pansy should marry a statesman; still, if a statesman admired her, that was his affair, and she would make a perfect little pearl of a peeress. It may seem to the reader that Mrs. Osmond had grown of a sudden strangely cynical, for she ended by saying to herself that this difficulty could probably be arranged. An impediment that was embodied in poor Rosier could not anyhow present itself as a dangerous one; there were always means of levelling secondary obstacles. Isabel was perfectly aware that she had not taken the measure of Pansy's tenacity, which might prove to be inconveniently great; but she inclined to see her as rather letting go, under suggestion, than as clutching under deprecation--since she had certainly the faculty of assent developed in a very much higher degree than that of protest. She would cling, yes, she would cling; but it really mattered to her very little what she clung to. Lord Warburton would do as well as Mr. Rosier--especially as she seemed quite to like him; she had expressed this sentiment to Isabel without a single reservation; she had said she thought his conversation most interesting--he had told her all about India. His manner to Pansy had been of the rightest and easiest--Isabel noticed that for herself, as she also observed that he talked to her not in the least in a patronising way, reminding himself of her youth and simplicity, but quite as if she understood his subjects with that sufficiency with which she followed those of the fashionable operas. This went far enough for attention to the music and the barytone. He was careful only to be kind--he was as kind as he had been to another fluttered young chit at Gardencourt. A girl might well be touched by that; she remembered how she herself had been touched, and said to herself that if she had been as simple as Pansy the impression would have been deeper still. She had not been simple when she refused him; that operation had been as complicated as, later, her acceptance of Osmond had been. Pansy, however, in spite of HER simplicity, really did understand, and was glad that Lord Warburton should talk to her, not about her partners and bouquets, but about the state of Italy, the condition of the peasantry, the famous grist-tax, the pellagra, his impressions of Roman society. She looked at him, as she drew her needle through her tapestry, with sweet submissive eyes, and when she lowered them she gave little quiet oblique glances at his person, his hands, his feet, his clothes, as if she were considering him. Even his person, Isabel might have reminded her, was better than Mr. Rosier's. But Isabel contented herself at such moments with wondering where this gentleman was; he came no more at all to Palazzo Roccanera. It was surprising, as I say, the hold it had taken of her--the idea of assisting her husband to be pleased. It was surprising for a variety of reasons which I shall presently touch upon. On the evening I speak of, while Lord Warburton sat there, she had been on the point of taking the great step of going out of the room and leaving her companions alone. I say the great step, because it was in this light that Gilbert Osmond would have regarded it, and Isabel was trying as much as possible to take her husband's view. She succeeded after a fashion, but she fell short of the point I mention. After all she couldn't rise to it; something held her and made this impossible. It was not exactly that it would be base or insidious; for women as a general thing practise such manoeuvres with a perfectly good conscience, and Isabel was instinctively much more true than false to the common genius of her sex. There was a vague doubt that interposed--a sense that she was not quite sure. So she remained in the drawing-room, and after a while Lord Warburton went off to his party, of which he promised to give Pansy a full account on the morrow. After he had gone she wondered if she had prevented something which would have happened if she had absented herself for a quarter of an hour; and then she pronounced--always mentally--that when their distinguished visitor should wish her to go away he would easily find means to let her know it. Pansy said nothing whatever about him after he had gone, and Isabel studiously said nothing, as she had taken a vow of reserve until after he should have declared himself. He was a little longer in coming to this than might seem to accord with the description he had given Isabel of his feelings. Pansy went to bed, and Isabel had to admit that she could not now guess what her stepdaughter was thinking of. Her transparent little companion was for the moment not to be seen through. She remained alone, looking at the fire, until, at the end of half an hour, her husband came in. He moved about a while in silence and then sat down; he looked at the fire like herself. But she now had transferred her eyes from the flickering flame in the chimney to Osmond's face, and she watched him while he kept his silence. Covert observation had become a habit with her; an instinct, of which it is not an exaggeration to say that it was allied to that of self-defence, had made it habitual. She wished as much as possible to know his thoughts, to know what he would say, beforehand, so that she might prepare her answer. Preparing answers had not been her strong point of old; she had rarely in this respect got further than thinking afterwards of clever things she might have said. But she had learned caution--learned it in a measure from her husband's very countenance. It was the same face she had looked into with eyes equally earnest perhaps, but less penetrating, on the terrace of a Florentine villa; except that Osmond had grown slightly stouter since his marriage. He still, however, might strike one as very distinguished. "Has Lord Warburton been here?" he presently asked. "Yes, he stayed half an hour." "Did he see Pansy?" "Yes; he sat on the sofa beside her." "Did he talk with her much?" "He talked almost only to her." "It seems to me he's attentive. Isn't that what you call it?" "I don't call it anything," said Isabel; "I've waited for you to give it a name." "That's a consideration you don't always show," Osmond answered after a moment. "I've determined, this time, to try and act as you'd like. I've so often failed of that." Osmond turned his head slowly, looking at her. "Are you trying to quarrel with me?" "No, I'm trying to live at peace." "Nothing's more easy; you know I don't quarrel myself." "What do you call it when you try to make me angry?" Isabel asked. "I don't try; if I've done so it has been the most natural thing in the world. Moreover I'm not in the least trying now." Isabel smiled. "It doesn't matter. I've determined never to be angry again." "That's an excellent resolve. Your temper isn't good." "No--it's not good." She pushed away the book she had been reading and took up the band of tapestry Pansy had left on the table. "That's partly why I've not spoken to you about this business of my daughter's," Osmond said, designating Pansy in the manner that was most frequent with him. "I was afraid I should encounter opposition--that you too would have views on the subject. I've sent little Rosier about his business." "You were afraid I'd plead for Mr. Rosier? Haven't you noticed that I've never spoken to you of him?" "I've never given you a chance. We've so little conversation in these days. I know he was an old friend of yours." "Yes; he's an old friend of mine." Isabel cared little more for him than for the tapestry that she held in her hand; but it was true that he was an old friend and that with her husband she felt a desire not to extenuate such ties. 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's fortunate," Osmond observed. "Fortunate for me, I suppose you mean. For him it matters little." "There's no use talking of him," Osmond said. "As I tell you, I've turned him out." "Yes; but a lover outside's always a lover. He's sometimes even more of one. Mr. Rosier still has hope." "He's welcome to the comfort of it! My daughter has only to sit perfectly quiet to become Lady Warburton." "Should you like that?" Isabel asked with a simplicity which was not so affected as it may appear. She was resolved to assume nothing, for Osmond had a way of unexpectedly turning her assumptions against her. The intensity with which he would like his daughter to become Lady Warburton had been the very basis of her own recent reflections. But that was for herself; she would recognise nothing until Osmond should have put it into words; she would not take for granted with him that he thought Lord Warburton a prize worth an amount of effort that was unusual among the Osmonds. It was Gilbert's constant intimation that for him nothing in life was a prize; that he treated as from equal to equal with the most distinguished people in the world, and that his daughter had only to look about her to pick out a prince. It cost him therefore a lapse from consistency to say explicitly that he yearned for Lord Warburton and that if this nobleman should escape his equivalent might not be found; with which moreover it was another of his customary implications that he was never inconsistent. He would have liked his wife to glide over the point. But strangely enough, now that she was face to face with him and although an hour before she had almost invented a scheme for pleasing him, Isabel was not accommodating, would not glide. And yet she knew exactly the effect on his mind of her question: it would operate as an humiliation. Never mind; he was terribly capable of humiliating her--all the more so that he was also capable of waiting for great opportunities and of showing sometimes an almost unaccountable indifference to small ones. Isabel perhaps took a small opportunity because she would not have availed herself of a great one. Osmond at present acquitted himself very honourably. "I should like it extremely; it would be a great marriage. And then Lord Warburton has another advantage: he's an old friend of yours. It would be pleasant for him to come into the family. It's very odd Pansy's admirers should all be your old friends." "It's natural that they should come to see me. In coming to see me they see Pansy. Seeing her it's natural they should fall in love with her." "So I think. But you're not bound to do so." "If she should marry Lord Warburton I should be very glad," Isabel went on frankly. "He's an excellent man. You say, however, that she has only to sit perfectly still. Perhaps she won't sit perfectly still. If she loses Mr. Rosier she may jump up!" Osmond appeared to give no heed to this; he sat gazing at the fire. "Pansy would like to be a great lady," he remarked in a moment with a certain tenderness of tone. "She wishes above all to please," he added. "To please Mr. Rosier, perhaps." "No, to please me." "Me too a little, I think," said Isabel. "Yes, she has a great opinion of you. But she'll do what I like." "If you're sure of that, it's very well," she went on. "Meantime," said Osmond, "I should like our distinguished visitor to speak." "He has spoken--to me. He has told me it would be a great pleasure to him to believe she could care for him." Osmond turned his head quickly, but at first he said nothing. Then, "Why didn't you tell me that?" he asked sharply. "There was no opportunity. You know how we live. I've taken the first chance that has offered." "Did you speak to him of Rosier?" "Oh yes, a little." "That was hardly necessary." "I thought it best he should know, so that, so that--" And Isabel paused. "So that what?" "So that he might act accordingly." "So that he might back out, do you mean?" "No, so that he might advance while there's yet time." "That's not the effect it seems to have had." "You should have patience," said Isabel. "You know Englishmen are shy." "This one's not. He was not when he made love to YOU." She had been afraid Osmond would speak of that; it was disagreeable to her. "I beg your pardon; he was extremely so," she returned. He answered nothing for some time; he took up a book and fingered the pages while she sat silent and occupied herself with Pansy's tapestry. "You must have a great deal of influence with him," Osmond went on at last. "The moment you really wish it you can bring him to the point." This was more offensive still; but she felt the great naturalness of his saying it, and it was after all extremely like what she had said to herself. "Why should I have influence?" she asked. "What have I ever done to put him under an obligation to me?" "You refused to marry him," said Osmond with his eyes on his book. "I must not presume too much on that," she replied. He threw down the book presently and got up, standing before the fire with his hands behind him. "Well, I hold that it lies in your hands. I shall leave it there. With a little good-will you may manage it. Think that over and remember how much I count on you." He waited a little, to give her time to answer; but she answered nothing, and he presently strolled out of the room.

The situation between Lord Warburton and Pansy presents us with an interesting situation that allows Isabel to think about the right motivations behind an action. If Lord Warburton is marrying Pansy in order to please Isabel, she sees that it would be wrong of her to take advantage of this. Yet Isabel realizes that this is exactly what Madame Merle and Osmond expect of her: they expect her to have no qualms about using another person for one's own ends. This makes her reflect on the moral character of the people around her. As Robert Pippin has pointed out , the modern situation that Henry James was facing during his time introduced the possibility that psychological motivations made an action moral or immoral. For example, if Osmond had married Isabel just for his own self-interest and to increase his fortune, it would be immoral. But Isabel had married Osmond because she had wanted to give him the means to further express himself, and this is considered moral. However, the problem being presented in the novel is that psychological motivations only crystallize as such later on in life. It is important to note the technique that James employs to enter into Isabel's mind. He first of all has set up the scene so that we have only gradually approached Isabel's true state of mind through the speculations of others. We first get Edward Rosier's speculations of Isabel, then Lord Warburton's, then Ralph's, until we finally approach Isabel's own. It is like peeling the layers off of an onion until we reach the core of Isabel's thought. Furthermore, there is an indication that Isabel's own thoughts are very much infected and inflected through her understanding of the thoughts of others. Sharon Cameron has called this the 'intersubjectivity' of the novel: the belief that one's mind is not entirely one's own, but rather a consciousness crystallizes as such only once one knows what others are thinking. Finally, Chapter 42 provides us with insight into James' views on the conventional Old World. Osmond is representative of empty traditions without any intrinsic meaning. He follows them simply to show his own aristocratic value. At best, this Old World is capable of showing itself off through aesthetics -- knowledge about classical art, for example, would let one show off how cultured one is. However, James is questioning whether or not this aristocratic, European view of the world would not benefit from the freshness of an American, moral perspective. Isabel is representative of the New World, and the insights that an open mind can provide to a European outlook. She wants to always look at things for herself, bring her own original perspective, and question the meaning of traditions. Yet it is problematic that she has only two means of expressing herself: money and marriage. There seems also to be a feminist point being made here, especially in Isabel's envy of Lord Warburton. Women did not have enough avenues open to them during this time period for expression of their character, and James seems to be suggesting that they would have something very valuable to add to society if more pathways were open to them to do so.

analysis

Three nights after this she took Pansy to a great party, to which Osmond, who never went to dances, did not accompany them. Pansy was as ready for a dance as ever; she was not of a generalising turn and had not extended to other pleasures the interdict she had seen placed on those of love. If she was biding her time or hoping to circumvent her father she must have had a prevision of success. Isabel thought this unlikely; it was much more likely that Pansy had simply determined to be a good girl. She had never had such a chance, and she had a proper esteem for chances. She carried herself no less attentively than usual and kept no less anxious an eye upon her vaporous skirts; she held her bouquet very tight and counted over the flowers for the twentieth time. She made Isabel feel old; it seemed so long since she had been in a flutter about a ball. Pansy, who was greatly admired, was never in want of partners, and very soon after their arrival she gave Isabel, who was not dancing, her bouquet to hold. Isabel had rendered her this service for some minutes when she became aware of the near presence of Edward Rosier. He stood before her; he had lost his affable smile and wore a look of almost military resolution. The change in his appearance would have made Isabel smile if she had not felt his case to be at bottom a hard one: he had always smelt so much more of heliotrope than of gunpowder. He looked at her a moment somewhat fiercely, as if to notify her he was dangerous, and then dropped his eyes on her bouquet. After he had inspected it his glance softened and he said quickly: "It's all pansies; it must be hers!" Isabel smiled kindly. "Yes, it's hers; she gave it to me to hold." "May I hold it a little, Mrs. Osmond?" the poor young man asked. "No, I can't trust you; I'm afraid you wouldn't give it back." "I'm not sure that I should; I should leave the house with it instantly. But may I not at least have a single flower?" Isabel hesitated a moment, and then, smiling still, held out the bouquet. "Choose one yourself. It's frightful what I'm doing for you." "Ah, if you do no more than this, Mrs. Osmond!" Rosier exclaimed with his glass in one eye, carefully choosing his flower. "Don't put it into your button-hole," she said. "Don't for the world!" "I should like her to see it. She has refused to dance with me, but I wish to show her that I believe in her still." "It's very well to show it to her, but it's out of place to show it to others. Her father has told her not to dance with you." "And is that all YOU can do for me? I expected more from you, Mrs. Osmond," said the young man in a tone of fine general reference. "You know our acquaintance goes back very far--quite into the days of our innocent childhood." "Don't make me out too old," Isabel patiently answered. "You come back to that very often, and I've never denied it. But I must tell you that, old friends as we are, if you had done me the honour to ask me to marry you I should have refused you on the spot." "Ah, you don't esteem me then. Say at once that you think me a mere Parisian trifler!" "I esteem you very much, but I'm not in love with you. What I mean by that, of course, is that I'm not in love with you for Pansy." "Very good; I see. You pity me--that's all." And Edward Rosier looked all round, inconsequently, with his single glass. It was a revelation to him that people shouldn't be more pleased; but he was at least too proud to show that the deficiency struck him as general. Isabel for a moment said nothing. His manner and appearance had not the dignity of the deepest tragedy; his little glass, among other things, was against that. But she suddenly felt touched; her own unhappiness, after all, had something in common with his, and it came over her, more than before, that here, in recognisable, if not in romantic form, was the most affecting thing in the world--young love struggling with adversity. "Would you really be very kind to her?" she finally asked in a low tone. He dropped his eyes devoutly and raised the little flower that he held in his fingers to his lips. Then he looked at her. "You pity me; but don't you pity HER a little?" "I don't know; I'm not sure. She'll always enjoy life." "It will depend on what you call life!" Mr. Rosier effectively said. "She won't enjoy being tortured." "There'll be nothing of that." "I'm glad to hear it. She knows what she's about. You'll see." "I think she does, and she'll never disobey her father. But she's coming back to me," Isabel added, "and I must beg you to go away." Rosier lingered a moment till Pansy came in sight on the arm of her cavalier; he stood just long enough to look her in the face. Then he walked away, holding up his head; and the manner in which he achieved this sacrifice to expediency convinced Isabel he was very much in love. Pansy, who seldom got disarranged in dancing, looking perfectly fresh and cool after this exercise, waited a moment and then took back her bouquet. Isabel watched her and saw she was counting the flowers; whereupon she said to herself that decidedly there were deeper forces at play than she had recognised. Pansy had seen Rosier turn away, but she said nothing to Isabel about him; she talked only of her partner, after he had made his bow and retired; of the music, the floor, the rare misfortune of having already torn her dress. Isabel was sure, however, she had discovered her lover to have abstracted a flower; though this knowledge was not needed to account for the dutiful grace with which she responded to the appeal of her next partner. That perfect amenity under acute constraint was part of a larger system. She was again led forth by a flushed young man, this time carrying her bouquet; and she had not been absent many minutes when Isabel saw Lord Warburton advancing through the crowd. He presently drew near and bade her good-evening; she had not seen him since the day before. He looked about him, and then "Where's the little maid?" he asked. It was in this manner that he had formed the harmless habit of alluding to Miss Osmond. "She's dancing," said Isabel. "You'll see her somewhere." He looked among the dancers and at last caught Pansy's eye. "She sees me, but she won't notice me," he then remarked. "Are you not dancing?" "As you see, I'm a wall-flower." "Won't you dance with me?" "Thank you; I'd rather you should dance with the little maid." "One needn't prevent the other--especially as she's engaged." "She's not engaged for everything, and you can reserve yourself. She dances very hard, and you'll be the fresher." "She dances beautifully," said Lord Warburton, following her with his eyes. "Ah, at last," he added, "she has given me a smile." He stood there with his handsome, easy, important physiognomy; and as Isabel observed him it came over her, as it had done before, that it was strange a man of his mettle should take an interest in a little maid. It struck her as a great incongruity; neither Pansy's small fascinations, nor his own kindness, his good-nature, not even his need for amusement, which was extreme and constant, were sufficient to account for it. "I should like to dance with you," he went on in a moment, turning back to Isabel; "but I think I like even better to talk with you." "Yes, it's better, and it's more worthy of your dignity. Great statesmen oughtn't to waltz." "Don't be cruel. Why did you recommend me then to dance with Miss Osmond?" "Ah, that's different. If you danced with her it would look simply like a piece of kindness--as if you were doing it for her amusement. If you dance with me you'll look as if you were doing it for your own." "And pray haven't I a right to amuse myself?" "No, not with the affairs of the British Empire on your hands." "The British Empire be hanged! You're always laughing at it." "Amuse yourself with talking to me," said Isabel. "I'm not sure it's really a recreation. You're too pointed; I've always to be defending myself. And you strike me as more than usually dangerous to-night. Will you absolutely not dance?" "I can't leave my place. Pansy must find me here." He was silent a little. "You're wonderfully good to her," he said suddenly. Isabel stared a little and smiled. "Can you imagine one's not being?" "No indeed. I know how one is charmed with her. But you must have done a great deal for her." "I've taken her out with me," said Isabel, smiling still. "And I've seen that she has proper clothes." "Your society must have been a great benefit to her. You've talked to her, advised her, helped her to develop." "Ah yes, if she isn't the rose she has lived near it." She laughed, and her companion did as much; but there was a certain visible preoccupation in his face which interfered with complete hilarity. "We all try to live as near it as we can," he said after a moment's hesitation. Isabel turned away; Pansy was about to be restored to her, and she welcomed the diversion. We know how much she liked Lord Warburton; she thought him pleasanter even than the sum of his merits warranted; there was something in his friendship that appeared a kind of resource in case of indefinite need; it was like having a large balance at the bank. She felt happier when he was in the room; there was something reassuring in his approach; the sound of his voice reminded her of the beneficence of nature. Yet for all that it didn't suit her that he should be too near her, that he should take too much of her good-will for granted. She was afraid of that; she averted herself from it; she wished he wouldn't. She felt that if he should come too near, as it were, it might be in her to flash out and bid him keep his distance. Pansy came back to Isabel with another rent in her skirt, which was the inevitable consequence of the first and which she displayed to Isabel with serious eyes. There were too many gentlemen in uniform; they wore those dreadful spurs, which were fatal to the dresses of little maids. It hereupon became apparent that the resources of women are innumerable. Isabel devoted herself to Pansy's desecrated drapery; she fumbled for a pin and repaired the injury; she smiled and listened to her account of her adventures. Her attention, her sympathy were immediate and active; and they were in direct proportion to a sentiment with which they were in no way connected--a lively conjecture as to whether Lord Warburton might be trying to make love to her. It was not simply his words just then; it was others as well; it was the reference and the continuity. This was what she thought about while she pinned up Pansy's dress. If it were so, as she feared, he was of course unwitting; he himself had not taken account of his intention. But this made it none the more auspicious, made the situation none less impossible. The sooner he should get back into right relations with things the better. He immediately began to talk to Pansy--on whom it was certainly mystifying to see that he dropped a smile of chastened devotion. Pansy replied, as usual, with a little air of conscientious aspiration; he had to bend toward her a good deal in conversation, and her eyes, as usual, wandered up and down his robust person as if he had offered it to her for exhibition. She always seemed a little frightened; yet her fright was not of the painful character that suggests dislike; on the contrary, she looked as if she knew that he knew she liked him. Isabel left them together a little and wandered toward a friend whom she saw near and with whom she talked till the music of the following dance began, for which she knew Pansy to be also engaged. The girl joined her presently, with a little fluttered flush, and Isabel, who scrupulously took Osmond's view of his daughter's complete dependence, consigned her, as a precious and momentary loan, to her appointed partner. About all this matter she had her own imaginations, her own reserves; there were moments when Pansy's extreme adhesiveness made each of them, to her sense, look foolish. But Osmond had given her a sort of tableau of her position as his daughter's duenna, which consisted of gracious alternations of concession and contraction; and there were directions of his which she liked to think she obeyed to the letter. Perhaps, as regards some of them, it was because her doing so appeared to reduce them to the absurd. After Pansy had been led away, she found Lord Warburton drawing near her again. She rested her eyes on him steadily; she wished she could sound his thoughts. But he had no appearance of confusion. "She has promised to dance with me later," he said. "I'm glad of that. I suppose you've engaged her for the cotillion." At this he looked a little awkward. "No, I didn't ask her for that. It's a quadrille." "Ah, you're not clever!" said Isabel almost angrily. "I told her to keep the cotillion in case you should ask for it." "Poor little maid, fancy that!" And Lord Warburton laughed frankly. "Of course I will if you like." "If I like? Oh, if you dance with her only because I like it--!" "I'm afraid I bore her. She seems to have a lot of young fellows on her book." Isabel dropped her eyes, reflecting rapidly; Lord Warburton stood there looking at her and she felt his eyes on her face. She felt much inclined to ask him to remove them. She didn't do so, however; she only said to him, after a minute, with her own raised: "Please let me understand." "Understand what?" "You told me ten days ago that you'd like to marry my stepdaughter. You've not forgotten it!" "Forgotten it? I wrote to Mr. Osmond about it this morning." "Ah," said Isabel, "he didn't mention to me that he had heard from you." Lord Warburton stammered a little. "I--I didn't send my letter." "Perhaps you forgot THAT." "No, I wasn't satisfied with it. It's an awkward sort of letter to write, you know. But I shall send it to-night." "At three o'clock in the morning?" "I mean later, in the course of the day." "Very good. You still wish then to marry her?" "Very much indeed." "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?" "Ah," said Lord Warburton readily, "I'll let her dance with other people! About the cotillion, the fact is I thought that you--that you--" "That I would do it with you? I told you I'd do nothing." "Exactly; so that while it's going on I might find some quiet corner where we may sit down and talk." "Oh," said Isabel gravely, "you're much too considerate of me." When the cotillion came Pansy was found to have engaged herself, thinking, in perfect humility, that Lord Warburton had no intentions. Isabel recommended him to seek another partner, but he assured her that he would dance with no one but herself. As, however, she had, in spite of the remonstrances of her hostess, declined other invitations on the ground that she was not dancing at all, it was not possible for her to make an exception in Lord Warburton's favour. "After all I don't care to dance," he said; "it's a barbarous amusement: I'd much rather talk." And he intimated that he had discovered exactly the corner he had been looking for--a quiet nook in one of the smaller rooms, where the music would come to them faintly and not interfere with conversation. Isabel had decided to let him carry out his idea; she wished to be satisfied. She wandered away from the ball-room with him, though she knew her husband desired she should not lose sight of his daughter. It was with his daughter's pretendant, however; that would make it right for Osmond. On her way out of the ball-room she came upon Edward Rosier, who was standing in a doorway, with folded arms, looking at the dance in the attitude of a young man without illusions. She stopped a moment and asked him if he were not dancing. "Certainly not, if I can't dance with HER!" he answered. "You had better go away then," said Isabel with the manner of good counsel. "I shall not go till she does!" And he let Lord Warburton pass without giving him a look. This nobleman, however, had noticed the melancholy youth, and he asked Isabel who her dismal friend was, remarking that he had seen him somewhere before. "It's the young man I've told you about, who's in love with Pansy." "Ah yes, I remember. He looks rather bad." "He has reason. My husband won't listen to him." "What's the matter with him?" Lord Warburton enquired. "He seems very harmless." "He hasn't money enough, and he isn't very clever." Lord Warburton listened with interest; he seemed struck with this account of Edward Rosier. "Dear me; he looked a well-set-up young fellow." "So he is, but my husband's very particular." "Oh, I see." And Lord Warburton paused a moment. "How much money has he got?" he then ventured to ask. "Some forty thousand francs a year." "Sixteen hundred pounds? Ah, but that's very good, you know." "So I think. My husband, however, has larger ideas." "Yes; I've noticed that your husband has very large ideas. Is he really an idiot, the young man?" "An idiot? Not in the least; he's charming. When he was twelve years old I myself was in love with him." "He doesn't look much more than twelve to-day," Lord Warburton rejoined vaguely, looking about him. Then with more point, "Don't you think we might sit here?" he asked. "Wherever you please." The room was a sort of boudoir, pervaded by a subdued, rose-coloured light; a lady and gentleman moved out of it as our friends came in. "It's very kind of you to take such an interest in Mr. Rosier," Isabel said. "He seems to me rather ill-treated. He had a face a yard long. I wondered what ailed him." "You're a just man," said Isabel. "You've a kind thought even for a rival." Lord Warburton suddenly turned with a stare. "A rival! Do you call him my rival?" "Surely--if you both wish to marry the same person." "Yes--but since he has no chance!" "I like you, however that may be, for putting your self in his place. It shows imagination." "You like me for it?" And Lord Warburton looked at her with an uncertain eye. "I think you mean you're laughing at me for it." "Yes, I'm laughing at you a little. But I like you as somebody to laugh at." "Ah well, then, let me enter into his situation a little more. What do you suppose one could do for him?" "Since I have been praising your imagination I'll leave you to imagine that yourself," Isabel said. "Pansy too would like you for that." "Miss Osmond? Ah, she, I flatter myself, likes me already." "Very much, I think." He waited a little; he was still questioning her face. "Well then, I don't understand you. You don't mean that she cares for him?" A quick blush sprang to his brow. "You told me she would have no wish apart from her father's, and as I've gathered that he would favour me--!" He paused a little and then suggested "Don't you see?" through his blush. "Yes, I told you she has an immense wish to please her father, and that it would probably take her very far." "That seems to me a very proper feeling," said Lord Warburton. "Certainly; it's a very proper feeling." Isabel remained silent for some moments; the room continued empty; the sound of the music reached them with its richness softened by the interposing apartments. Then at last she said: "But it hardly strikes me as the sort of feeling to which a man would wish to be indebted for a wife." "I don't know; if the wife's a good one and he thinks she does well!" "Yes, of course you must think that." "I do; I can't help it. You call that very British, of course." "No, I don't. I think Pansy would do wonderfully well to marry you, and I don't know who should know it better than you. But you're not in love." "Ah, yes I am, Mrs. Osmond!" Isabel shook her head. "You like to think you are while you sit here with me. But that's not how you strike me." "I'm not like the young man in the doorway. I admit that. But what makes it so unnatural? Could any one in the world be more loveable than Miss Osmond?" "No one, possibly. But love has nothing to do with good reasons." "I don't agree with you. I'm delighted to have good reasons." "Of course you are. If you were really in love you wouldn't care a straw for them." "Ah, really in love--really in love!" Lord Warburton exclaimed, folding his arms, leaning back his head and stretching himself a little. "You must remember that I'm forty-two years old. I won't pretend I'm as I once was." "Well, if you're sure," said Isabel, "it's all right." He answered nothing; he sat there, with his head back, looking before him. Abruptly, however, he changed his position; he turned quickly to his friend. "Why are you so unwilling, so sceptical?" She met his eyes, and for a moment they looked straight at each other. If she wished to be satisfied she saw something that satisfied her; she saw in his expression the gleam of an idea that she was uneasy on her own account--that she was perhaps even in fear. It showed a suspicion, not a hope, but such as it was it told her what she wanted to know. Not for an instant should he suspect her of detecting in his proposal of marrying her step-daughter an implication of increased nearness to herself, or of thinking it, on such a betrayal, ominous. In that brief, extremely personal gaze, however, deeper meanings passed between them than they were conscious of at the moment. "My dear Lord Warburton," she said, smiling, "you may do, so far as I'm concerned, whatever comes into your head." And with this she got up and wandered into the adjoining room, where, within her companion's view, she was immediately addressed by a pair of gentlemen, high personages in the Roman world, who met her as if they had been looking for her. While she talked with them she found herself regretting she had moved; it looked a little like running away--all the more as Lord Warburton didn't follow her. She was glad of this, however, and at any rate she was satisfied. She was so well satisfied that when, in passing back into the ball-room, she found Edward Rosier still planted in the doorway, she stopped and spoke to him again. "You did right not to go away. I've some comfort for you." "I need it," the young man softly wailed, "when I see you so awfully thick with him!" "Don't speak of him; I'll do what I can for you. I'm afraid it won't be much, but what I can I'll do." He looked at her with gloomy obliqueness. "What has suddenly brought you round?" "The sense that you are an inconvenience in doorways!" she answered, smiling as she passed him. Half an hour later she took leave, with Pansy, and at the foot of the staircase the two ladies, with many other departing guests, waited a while for their carriage. Just as it approached Lord Warburton came out of the house and assisted them to reach their vehicle. He stood a moment at the door, asking Pansy if she had amused herself; and she, having answered him, fell back with a little air of fatigue. Then Isabel, at the window, detaining him by a movement of her finger, murmured gently: "Don't forget to send your letter to her father!"

Isabel takes Pansy to a dance, where she has been instructed by Osmond to keep watch over his daughter. While Pansy is dancing, Edward Rosier approaches Isabel in a determined manner. We learn that Pansy has refused to dance with him. He sees a bouquet of pansies that Isabel is holding, and realizing that it must belong to Pansy, he begs for one of the flowers. Pansy finishes a dance and is returning to Isabel, and Isabel bids Edward to leave. Upon her return, Pansy counts the flowers. Lord Warburton then approaches Isabel. Warburton has not yet asked Pansy to dance, because she is occupied with others. He then asks Isabel to dance, and she refuses. He says he prefers to talk to her anyway. Apparently Lord Warburton has written to Isabel telling her of his intention to offer marriage to Pansy, but he has not written to Osmond. The two then bump into Edward Rosier, who looks miserable. Lord Warburton notes how miserable he looks and asks Isabel why. Isabel tells him of Rosier's love for Pansy, and Warburton pities the man. Isabel notices that Warburton is not at all envious, and thinks that he is not in love with Pansy. Lord Warburton claims he has good reasons to love Pansy, and Isabel retorts that one never has good reasons to be in love. He wonders why Isabel is so skeptical of his intentions towards Pansy. The two exchange a look. Deeper meanings are exchanged between them than they are conscious of. Not for an instant should he suspect her of detecting in his proposal of marrying her stepdaughter an implication of increased nearness to herself, or of thinking it, on such a betrayal, ominous," the narrator tells us

summary

Three nights after this she took Pansy to a great party, to which Osmond, who never went to dances, did not accompany them. Pansy was as ready for a dance as ever; she was not of a generalising turn and had not extended to other pleasures the interdict she had seen placed on those of love. If she was biding her time or hoping to circumvent her father she must have had a prevision of success. Isabel thought this unlikely; it was much more likely that Pansy had simply determined to be a good girl. She had never had such a chance, and she had a proper esteem for chances. She carried herself no less attentively than usual and kept no less anxious an eye upon her vaporous skirts; she held her bouquet very tight and counted over the flowers for the twentieth time. She made Isabel feel old; it seemed so long since she had been in a flutter about a ball. Pansy, who was greatly admired, was never in want of partners, and very soon after their arrival she gave Isabel, who was not dancing, her bouquet to hold. Isabel had rendered her this service for some minutes when she became aware of the near presence of Edward Rosier. He stood before her; he had lost his affable smile and wore a look of almost military resolution. The change in his appearance would have made Isabel smile if she had not felt his case to be at bottom a hard one: he had always smelt so much more of heliotrope than of gunpowder. He looked at her a moment somewhat fiercely, as if to notify her he was dangerous, and then dropped his eyes on her bouquet. After he had inspected it his glance softened and he said quickly: "It's all pansies; it must be hers!" Isabel smiled kindly. "Yes, it's hers; she gave it to me to hold." "May I hold it a little, Mrs. Osmond?" the poor young man asked. "No, I can't trust you; I'm afraid you wouldn't give it back." "I'm not sure that I should; I should leave the house with it instantly. But may I not at least have a single flower?" Isabel hesitated a moment, and then, smiling still, held out the bouquet. "Choose one yourself. It's frightful what I'm doing for you." "Ah, if you do no more than this, Mrs. Osmond!" Rosier exclaimed with his glass in one eye, carefully choosing his flower. "Don't put it into your button-hole," she said. "Don't for the world!" "I should like her to see it. She has refused to dance with me, but I wish to show her that I believe in her still." "It's very well to show it to her, but it's out of place to show it to others. Her father has told her not to dance with you." "And is that all YOU can do for me? I expected more from you, Mrs. Osmond," said the young man in a tone of fine general reference. "You know our acquaintance goes back very far--quite into the days of our innocent childhood." "Don't make me out too old," Isabel patiently answered. "You come back to that very often, and I've never denied it. But I must tell you that, old friends as we are, if you had done me the honour to ask me to marry you I should have refused you on the spot." "Ah, you don't esteem me then. Say at once that you think me a mere Parisian trifler!" "I esteem you very much, but I'm not in love with you. What I mean by that, of course, is that I'm not in love with you for Pansy." "Very good; I see. You pity me--that's all." And Edward Rosier looked all round, inconsequently, with his single glass. It was a revelation to him that people shouldn't be more pleased; but he was at least too proud to show that the deficiency struck him as general. Isabel for a moment said nothing. His manner and appearance had not the dignity of the deepest tragedy; his little glass, among other things, was against that. But she suddenly felt touched; her own unhappiness, after all, had something in common with his, and it came over her, more than before, that here, in recognisable, if not in romantic form, was the most affecting thing in the world--young love struggling with adversity. "Would you really be very kind to her?" she finally asked in a low tone. He dropped his eyes devoutly and raised the little flower that he held in his fingers to his lips. Then he looked at her. "You pity me; but don't you pity HER a little?" "I don't know; I'm not sure. She'll always enjoy life." "It will depend on what you call life!" Mr. Rosier effectively said. "She won't enjoy being tortured." "There'll be nothing of that." "I'm glad to hear it. She knows what she's about. You'll see." "I think she does, and she'll never disobey her father. But she's coming back to me," Isabel added, "and I must beg you to go away." Rosier lingered a moment till Pansy came in sight on the arm of her cavalier; he stood just long enough to look her in the face. Then he walked away, holding up his head; and the manner in which he achieved this sacrifice to expediency convinced Isabel he was very much in love. Pansy, who seldom got disarranged in dancing, looking perfectly fresh and cool after this exercise, waited a moment and then took back her bouquet. Isabel watched her and saw she was counting the flowers; whereupon she said to herself that decidedly there were deeper forces at play than she had recognised. Pansy had seen Rosier turn away, but she said nothing to Isabel about him; she talked only of her partner, after he had made his bow and retired; of the music, the floor, the rare misfortune of having already torn her dress. Isabel was sure, however, she had discovered her lover to have abstracted a flower; though this knowledge was not needed to account for the dutiful grace with which she responded to the appeal of her next partner. That perfect amenity under acute constraint was part of a larger system. She was again led forth by a flushed young man, this time carrying her bouquet; and she had not been absent many minutes when Isabel saw Lord Warburton advancing through the crowd. He presently drew near and bade her good-evening; she had not seen him since the day before. He looked about him, and then "Where's the little maid?" he asked. It was in this manner that he had formed the harmless habit of alluding to Miss Osmond. "She's dancing," said Isabel. "You'll see her somewhere." He looked among the dancers and at last caught Pansy's eye. "She sees me, but she won't notice me," he then remarked. "Are you not dancing?" "As you see, I'm a wall-flower." "Won't you dance with me?" "Thank you; I'd rather you should dance with the little maid." "One needn't prevent the other--especially as she's engaged." "She's not engaged for everything, and you can reserve yourself. She dances very hard, and you'll be the fresher." "She dances beautifully," said Lord Warburton, following her with his eyes. "Ah, at last," he added, "she has given me a smile." He stood there with his handsome, easy, important physiognomy; and as Isabel observed him it came over her, as it had done before, that it was strange a man of his mettle should take an interest in a little maid. It struck her as a great incongruity; neither Pansy's small fascinations, nor his own kindness, his good-nature, not even his need for amusement, which was extreme and constant, were sufficient to account for it. "I should like to dance with you," he went on in a moment, turning back to Isabel; "but I think I like even better to talk with you." "Yes, it's better, and it's more worthy of your dignity. Great statesmen oughtn't to waltz." "Don't be cruel. Why did you recommend me then to dance with Miss Osmond?" "Ah, that's different. If you danced with her it would look simply like a piece of kindness--as if you were doing it for her amusement. If you dance with me you'll look as if you were doing it for your own." "And pray haven't I a right to amuse myself?" "No, not with the affairs of the British Empire on your hands." "The British Empire be hanged! You're always laughing at it." "Amuse yourself with talking to me," said Isabel. "I'm not sure it's really a recreation. You're too pointed; I've always to be defending myself. And you strike me as more than usually dangerous to-night. Will you absolutely not dance?" "I can't leave my place. Pansy must find me here." He was silent a little. "You're wonderfully good to her," he said suddenly. Isabel stared a little and smiled. "Can you imagine one's not being?" "No indeed. I know how one is charmed with her. But you must have done a great deal for her." "I've taken her out with me," said Isabel, smiling still. "And I've seen that she has proper clothes." "Your society must have been a great benefit to her. You've talked to her, advised her, helped her to develop." "Ah yes, if she isn't the rose she has lived near it." She laughed, and her companion did as much; but there was a certain visible preoccupation in his face which interfered with complete hilarity. "We all try to live as near it as we can," he said after a moment's hesitation. Isabel turned away; Pansy was about to be restored to her, and she welcomed the diversion. We know how much she liked Lord Warburton; she thought him pleasanter even than the sum of his merits warranted; there was something in his friendship that appeared a kind of resource in case of indefinite need; it was like having a large balance at the bank. She felt happier when he was in the room; there was something reassuring in his approach; the sound of his voice reminded her of the beneficence of nature. Yet for all that it didn't suit her that he should be too near her, that he should take too much of her good-will for granted. She was afraid of that; she averted herself from it; she wished he wouldn't. She felt that if he should come too near, as it were, it might be in her to flash out and bid him keep his distance. Pansy came back to Isabel with another rent in her skirt, which was the inevitable consequence of the first and which she displayed to Isabel with serious eyes. There were too many gentlemen in uniform; they wore those dreadful spurs, which were fatal to the dresses of little maids. It hereupon became apparent that the resources of women are innumerable. Isabel devoted herself to Pansy's desecrated drapery; she fumbled for a pin and repaired the injury; she smiled and listened to her account of her adventures. Her attention, her sympathy were immediate and active; and they were in direct proportion to a sentiment with which they were in no way connected--a lively conjecture as to whether Lord Warburton might be trying to make love to her. It was not simply his words just then; it was others as well; it was the reference and the continuity. This was what she thought about while she pinned up Pansy's dress. If it were so, as she feared, he was of course unwitting; he himself had not taken account of his intention. But this made it none the more auspicious, made the situation none less impossible. The sooner he should get back into right relations with things the better. He immediately began to talk to Pansy--on whom it was certainly mystifying to see that he dropped a smile of chastened devotion. Pansy replied, as usual, with a little air of conscientious aspiration; he had to bend toward her a good deal in conversation, and her eyes, as usual, wandered up and down his robust person as if he had offered it to her for exhibition. She always seemed a little frightened; yet her fright was not of the painful character that suggests dislike; on the contrary, she looked as if she knew that he knew she liked him. Isabel left them together a little and wandered toward a friend whom she saw near and with whom she talked till the music of the following dance began, for which she knew Pansy to be also engaged. The girl joined her presently, with a little fluttered flush, and Isabel, who scrupulously took Osmond's view of his daughter's complete dependence, consigned her, as a precious and momentary loan, to her appointed partner. About all this matter she had her own imaginations, her own reserves; there were moments when Pansy's extreme adhesiveness made each of them, to her sense, look foolish. But Osmond had given her a sort of tableau of her position as his daughter's duenna, which consisted of gracious alternations of concession and contraction; and there were directions of his which she liked to think she obeyed to the letter. Perhaps, as regards some of them, it was because her doing so appeared to reduce them to the absurd. After Pansy had been led away, she found Lord Warburton drawing near her again. She rested her eyes on him steadily; she wished she could sound his thoughts. But he had no appearance of confusion. "She has promised to dance with me later," he said. "I'm glad of that. I suppose you've engaged her for the cotillion." At this he looked a little awkward. "No, I didn't ask her for that. It's a quadrille." "Ah, you're not clever!" said Isabel almost angrily. "I told her to keep the cotillion in case you should ask for it." "Poor little maid, fancy that!" And Lord Warburton laughed frankly. "Of course I will if you like." "If I like? Oh, if you dance with her only because I like it--!" "I'm afraid I bore her. She seems to have a lot of young fellows on her book." Isabel dropped her eyes, reflecting rapidly; Lord Warburton stood there looking at her and she felt his eyes on her face. She felt much inclined to ask him to remove them. She didn't do so, however; she only said to him, after a minute, with her own raised: "Please let me understand." "Understand what?" "You told me ten days ago that you'd like to marry my stepdaughter. You've not forgotten it!" "Forgotten it? I wrote to Mr. Osmond about it this morning." "Ah," said Isabel, "he didn't mention to me that he had heard from you." Lord Warburton stammered a little. "I--I didn't send my letter." "Perhaps you forgot THAT." "No, I wasn't satisfied with it. It's an awkward sort of letter to write, you know. But I shall send it to-night." "At three o'clock in the morning?" "I mean later, in the course of the day." "Very good. You still wish then to marry her?" "Very much indeed." "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?" "Ah," said Lord Warburton readily, "I'll let her dance with other people! About the cotillion, the fact is I thought that you--that you--" "That I would do it with you? I told you I'd do nothing." "Exactly; so that while it's going on I might find some quiet corner where we may sit down and talk." "Oh," said Isabel gravely, "you're much too considerate of me." When the cotillion came Pansy was found to have engaged herself, thinking, in perfect humility, that Lord Warburton had no intentions. Isabel recommended him to seek another partner, but he assured her that he would dance with no one but herself. As, however, she had, in spite of the remonstrances of her hostess, declined other invitations on the ground that she was not dancing at all, it was not possible for her to make an exception in Lord Warburton's favour. "After all I don't care to dance," he said; "it's a barbarous amusement: I'd much rather talk." And he intimated that he had discovered exactly the corner he had been looking for--a quiet nook in one of the smaller rooms, where the music would come to them faintly and not interfere with conversation. Isabel had decided to let him carry out his idea; she wished to be satisfied. She wandered away from the ball-room with him, though she knew her husband desired she should not lose sight of his daughter. It was with his daughter's pretendant, however; that would make it right for Osmond. On her way out of the ball-room she came upon Edward Rosier, who was standing in a doorway, with folded arms, looking at the dance in the attitude of a young man without illusions. She stopped a moment and asked him if he were not dancing. "Certainly not, if I can't dance with HER!" he answered. "You had better go away then," said Isabel with the manner of good counsel. "I shall not go till she does!" And he let Lord Warburton pass without giving him a look. This nobleman, however, had noticed the melancholy youth, and he asked Isabel who her dismal friend was, remarking that he had seen him somewhere before. "It's the young man I've told you about, who's in love with Pansy." "Ah yes, I remember. He looks rather bad." "He has reason. My husband won't listen to him." "What's the matter with him?" Lord Warburton enquired. "He seems very harmless." "He hasn't money enough, and he isn't very clever." Lord Warburton listened with interest; he seemed struck with this account of Edward Rosier. "Dear me; he looked a well-set-up young fellow." "So he is, but my husband's very particular." "Oh, I see." And Lord Warburton paused a moment. "How much money has he got?" he then ventured to ask. "Some forty thousand francs a year." "Sixteen hundred pounds? Ah, but that's very good, you know." "So I think. My husband, however, has larger ideas." "Yes; I've noticed that your husband has very large ideas. Is he really an idiot, the young man?" "An idiot? Not in the least; he's charming. When he was twelve years old I myself was in love with him." "He doesn't look much more than twelve to-day," Lord Warburton rejoined vaguely, looking about him. Then with more point, "Don't you think we might sit here?" he asked. "Wherever you please." The room was a sort of boudoir, pervaded by a subdued, rose-coloured light; a lady and gentleman moved out of it as our friends came in. "It's very kind of you to take such an interest in Mr. Rosier," Isabel said. "He seems to me rather ill-treated. He had a face a yard long. I wondered what ailed him." "You're a just man," said Isabel. "You've a kind thought even for a rival." Lord Warburton suddenly turned with a stare. "A rival! Do you call him my rival?" "Surely--if you both wish to marry the same person." "Yes--but since he has no chance!" "I like you, however that may be, for putting your self in his place. It shows imagination." "You like me for it?" And Lord Warburton looked at her with an uncertain eye. "I think you mean you're laughing at me for it." "Yes, I'm laughing at you a little. But I like you as somebody to laugh at." "Ah well, then, let me enter into his situation a little more. What do you suppose one could do for him?" "Since I have been praising your imagination I'll leave you to imagine that yourself," Isabel said. "Pansy too would like you for that." "Miss Osmond? Ah, she, I flatter myself, likes me already." "Very much, I think." He waited a little; he was still questioning her face. "Well then, I don't understand you. You don't mean that she cares for him?" A quick blush sprang to his brow. "You told me she would have no wish apart from her father's, and as I've gathered that he would favour me--!" He paused a little and then suggested "Don't you see?" through his blush. "Yes, I told you she has an immense wish to please her father, and that it would probably take her very far." "That seems to me a very proper feeling," said Lord Warburton. "Certainly; it's a very proper feeling." Isabel remained silent for some moments; the room continued empty; the sound of the music reached them with its richness softened by the interposing apartments. Then at last she said: "But it hardly strikes me as the sort of feeling to which a man would wish to be indebted for a wife." "I don't know; if the wife's a good one and he thinks she does well!" "Yes, of course you must think that." "I do; I can't help it. You call that very British, of course." "No, I don't. I think Pansy would do wonderfully well to marry you, and I don't know who should know it better than you. But you're not in love." "Ah, yes I am, Mrs. Osmond!" Isabel shook her head. "You like to think you are while you sit here with me. But that's not how you strike me." "I'm not like the young man in the doorway. I admit that. But what makes it so unnatural? Could any one in the world be more loveable than Miss Osmond?" "No one, possibly. But love has nothing to do with good reasons." "I don't agree with you. I'm delighted to have good reasons." "Of course you are. If you were really in love you wouldn't care a straw for them." "Ah, really in love--really in love!" Lord Warburton exclaimed, folding his arms, leaning back his head and stretching himself a little. "You must remember that I'm forty-two years old. I won't pretend I'm as I once was." "Well, if you're sure," said Isabel, "it's all right." He answered nothing; he sat there, with his head back, looking before him. Abruptly, however, he changed his position; he turned quickly to his friend. "Why are you so unwilling, so sceptical?" She met his eyes, and for a moment they looked straight at each other. If she wished to be satisfied she saw something that satisfied her; she saw in his expression the gleam of an idea that she was uneasy on her own account--that she was perhaps even in fear. It showed a suspicion, not a hope, but such as it was it told her what she wanted to know. Not for an instant should he suspect her of detecting in his proposal of marrying her step-daughter an implication of increased nearness to herself, or of thinking it, on such a betrayal, ominous. In that brief, extremely personal gaze, however, deeper meanings passed between them than they were conscious of at the moment. "My dear Lord Warburton," she said, smiling, "you may do, so far as I'm concerned, whatever comes into your head." And with this she got up and wandered into the adjoining room, where, within her companion's view, she was immediately addressed by a pair of gentlemen, high personages in the Roman world, who met her as if they had been looking for her. While she talked with them she found herself regretting she had moved; it looked a little like running away--all the more as Lord Warburton didn't follow her. She was glad of this, however, and at any rate she was satisfied. She was so well satisfied that when, in passing back into the ball-room, she found Edward Rosier still planted in the doorway, she stopped and spoke to him again. "You did right not to go away. I've some comfort for you." "I need it," the young man softly wailed, "when I see you so awfully thick with him!" "Don't speak of him; I'll do what I can for you. I'm afraid it won't be much, but what I can I'll do." He looked at her with gloomy obliqueness. "What has suddenly brought you round?" "The sense that you are an inconvenience in doorways!" she answered, smiling as she passed him. Half an hour later she took leave, with Pansy, and at the foot of the staircase the two ladies, with many other departing guests, waited a while for their carriage. Just as it approached Lord Warburton came out of the house and assisted them to reach their vehicle. He stood a moment at the door, asking Pansy if she had amused herself; and she, having answered him, fell back with a little air of fatigue. Then Isabel, at the window, detaining him by a movement of her finger, murmured gently: "Don't forget to send your letter to her father!"

In Chapter 43, Isabel guesses that Warburton may act or abstain from acting on the basis of her own desires: and it is this that makes her refuse to force him to do so. They exchange a look that is very significant for indicating how psychological motivation of two people with good intentions can play off of each other. The narrator tells us that Isabel sees the gleam of an idea in Warburton's eye that Isabel herself is uneasy. This is a very difficult construction: Isabel knows that Warburton is thinking about Isabel's thoughts and desires. The next sentence is attributed neither to Warburton, nor to Isabel - it is simply a statement that "not for an instant should he suspect her of detecting in his proposal... an implication of increased nearness to herself" . It could either mean that Warburton is trying to prevent Isabel from knowing that he is acting all out of his love for Isabel, or it could mean that Isabel notices Warburton is trying to prevent her from knowing his true motivation. Two people with good intentions, in other words, want to act only when they understand other people's desires and motivations, rather than acting purely out of their own self-interest. This seems to be the version of morality that James is propagating: one must understand oneself within a network of social relations and amidst the motivations of others in order to act in a moral way. The conversation between Countess Gemini and Henrietta Stackpole is one of the few conversations we get between two characters of minor importance. It is comical that these two characters get along: Countess Gemini has been described as a frivolous fabulist, and Henrietta Stackpole is very straightforward and honest. Henrietta Stackpole represents the New World and the possibilities open to modern women, insofar as she has an occupation that enables her to travel, think, observe, and be financially independent. Countess Gemini represents the decadence of the Old World, having married for position and money, she is left without any real values. Ralph and Isabel's conversation in Chapter 45 is significant because it shows Isabel finally beginning to move about the cage which Osmond has built for her: she finally starts to assert her own idea of how one should behave in life, rather than following Osmond's conventional way. Convention dictates that a woman should not oppose her husband's will. Isabel here feels that a heavy obligation. However, she realizes that if she convinces Lord Warburton to propose marriage to Pansy, he will only be doing it out of his love for Isabel. In Isabel's conversation with Pansy, in Chapter 46 then, Isabel seems to realize what more concretely what her morality is: she believes that people should act only from their own ideas and desires, and do so in an open and honest way.

analysis

I have already had reason to say that Isabel knew her husband to be displeased by the continuance of Ralph's visit to Rome. That knowledge was very present to her as she went to her cousin's hotel the day after she had invited Lord Warburton to give a tangible proof of his sincerity; and at this moment, as at others, she had a sufficient perception of the sources of Osmond's opposition. He wished her to have no freedom of mind, and he knew perfectly well that Ralph was an apostle of freedom. It was just because he was this, Isabel said to herself, that it was a refreshment to go and see him. It will be perceived that she partook of this refreshment in spite of her husband's aversion to it, that is partook of it, as she flattered herself, discreetly. She had not as yet undertaken to act in direct opposition to his wishes; he was her appointed and inscribed master; she gazed at moments with a sort of incredulous blankness at this fact. It weighed upon her imagination, however; constantly present to her mind were all the traditionary decencies and sanctities of marriage. The idea of violating them filled her with shame as well as with dread, for on giving herself away she had lost sight of this contingency in the perfect belief that her husband's intentions were as generous as her own. She seemed to see, none the less, the rapid approach of the day when she should have to take back something she had solemnly bestown. Such a ceremony would be odious and monstrous; she tried to shut her eyes to it meanwhile. Osmond would do nothing to help it by beginning first; he would put that burden upon her to the end. He had not yet formally forbidden her to call upon Ralph; but she felt sure that unless Ralph should very soon depart this prohibition would come. How could poor Ralph depart? The weather as yet made it impossible. She could perfectly understand her husband's wish for the event; she didn't, to be just, see how he COULD like her to be with her cousin. Ralph never said a word against him, but Osmond's sore, mute protest was none the less founded. If he should positively interpose, if he should put forth his authority, she would have to decide, and that wouldn't be easy. The prospect made her heart beat and her cheeks burn, as I say, in advance; there were moments when, in her wish to avoid an open rupture, she found herself wishing Ralph would start even at a risk. And it was of no use that, when catching herself in this state of mind, she called herself a feeble spirit, a coward. It was not that she loved Ralph less, but that almost anything seemed preferable to repudiating the most serious act--the single sacred act--of her life. That appeared to make the whole future hideous. To break with Osmond once would be to break for ever; any open acknowledgement of irreconcilable needs would be an admission that their whole attempt had proved a failure. For them there could be no condonement, no compromise, no easy forgetfulness, no formal readjustment. They had attempted only one thing, but that one thing was to have been exquisite. Once they missed it nothing else would do; there was no conceivable substitute for that success. For the moment, Isabel went to the Hotel de Paris as often as she thought well; the measure of propriety was in the canon of taste, and there couldn't have been a better proof that morality was, so to speak, a matter of earnest appreciation. Isabel's application of that measure had been particularly free to-day, for in addition to the general truth that she couldn't leave Ralph to die alone she had something important to ask of him. This indeed was Gilbert's business as well as her own. She came very soon to what she wished to speak of. "I want you to answer me a question. It's about Lord Warburton." "I think I guess your question," Ralph answered from his arm-chair, out of which his thin legs protruded at greater length than ever. "Very possibly you guess it. Please then answer it." "Oh, I don't say I can do that." "You're intimate with him," she said; "you've a great deal of observation of him." "Very true. But think how he must dissimulate!" "Why should he dissimulate? That's not his nature." "Ah, you must remember that the circumstances are peculiar," said Ralph with an air of private amusement. "To a certain extent--yes. But is he really in love?" "Very much, I think. I can make that out." "Ah!" said Isabel with a certain dryness. Ralph looked at her as if his mild hilarity had been touched with mystification. "You say that as if you were disappointed." Isabel got up, slowly smoothing her gloves and eyeing them thoughtfully. "It's after all no business of mine." "You're very philosophic," said her cousin. And then in a moment: "May I enquire what you're talking about?" Isabel stared. "I thought you knew. Lord Warburton tells me he wants, of all things in the world, to marry Pansy. I've told you that before, without eliciting a comment from you. You might risk one this morning, I think. Is it your belief that he really cares for her?" "Ah, for Pansy, no!" cried Ralph very positively. "But you said just now he did." Ralph waited a moment. "That he cared for you, Mrs. Osmond." Isabel shook her head gravely. "That's nonsense, you know." "Of course it is. But the nonsense is Warburton's, not mine." "That would be very tiresome." She spoke, as she flattered herself, with much subtlety. "I ought to tell you indeed," Ralph went on, "that to me he has denied it." "It's very good of you to talk about it together! Has he also told you that he's in love with Pansy?" "He has spoken very well of her--very properly. He has let me know, of course, that he thinks she would do very well at Lockleigh." "Does he really think it?" "Ah, what Warburton really thinks--!" said Ralph. Isabel fell to smoothing her gloves again; they were long, loose gloves on which she could freely expend herself. Soon, however, she looked up, and then, "Ah, Ralph, you give me no help!" she cried abruptly and passionately. It was the first time she had alluded to the need for help, and the words shook her cousin with their violence. He gave a long murmur of relief, of pity, of tenderness; it seemed to him that at last the gulf between them had been bridged. It was this that made him exclaim in a moment: "How unhappy you must be!" He had no sooner spoken than she recovered her self-possession, and the first use she made of it was to pretend she had not heard him. "When I talk of your helping me I talk great nonsense," she said with a quick smile. "The idea of my troubling you with my domestic embarrassments! The matter's very simple; Lord Warburton must get on by himself. I can't undertake to see him through." "He ought to succeed easily," said Ralph. Isabel debated. "Yes--but he has not always succeeded." "Very true. You know, however, how that always surprised me. Is Miss Osmond capable of giving us a surprise?" "It will come from him, rather. I seem to see that after all he'll let the matter drop." "He'll do nothing dishonourable," said Ralph. "I'm very sure of that. Nothing can be more honourable than for him to leave the poor child alone. She cares for another person, and it's cruel to attempt to bribe her by magnificent offers to give him up." "Cruel to the other person perhaps--the one she cares for. But Warburton isn't obliged to mind that." "No, cruel to her," said Isabel. "She would be very unhappy if she were to allow herself to be persuaded to desert poor Mr. Rosier. That idea seems to amuse you; of course you're not in love with him. He has the merit--for Pansy--of being in love with Pansy. She can see at a glance that Lord Warburton isn't." "He'd be very good to her," said Ralph. "He has been good to her already. Fortunately, however, he has not said a word to disturb her. He could come and bid her good-bye to-morrow with perfect propriety." "How would your husband like that?" "Not at all; and he may be right in not liking it. Only he must obtain satisfaction himself." "Has he commissioned you to obtain it?" Ralph ventured to ask. "It was natural that as an old friend of Lord Warburton's--an older friend, that is, than Gilbert--I should take an interest in his intentions." "Take an interest in his renouncing them, you mean?" Isabel hesitated, frowning a little. "Let me understand. Are you pleading his cause?" "Not in the least. I'm very glad he shouldn't become your stepdaughter's husband. It makes such a very queer relation to you!" said Ralph, smiling. "But I'm rather nervous lest your husband should think you haven't pushed him enough." Isabel found herself able to smile as well as he. "He knows me well enough not to have expected me to push. He himself has no intention of pushing, I presume. I'm not afraid I shall not be able to justify myself!" she said lightly. Her mask had dropped for an instant, but she had put it on again, to Ralph's infinite disappointment. He had caught a glimpse of her natural face and he wished immensely to look into it. He had an almost savage desire to hear her complain of her husband--hear her say that she should be held accountable for Lord Warburton's defection. Ralph was certain that this was her situation; he knew by instinct, in advance, the form that in such an event Osmond's displeasure would take. It could only take the meanest and cruellest. He would have liked to warn Isabel of it--to let her see at least how he judged for her and how he knew. It little mattered that Isabel would know much better; it was for his own satisfaction more than for hers that he longed to show her he was not deceived. He tried and tried again to make her betray Osmond; he felt cold-blooded, cruel, dishonourable almost, in doing so. But it scarcely mattered, for he only failed. What had she come for then, and why did she seem almost to offer him a chance to violate their tacit convention? Why did she ask him his advice if she gave him no liberty to answer her? How could they talk of her domestic embarrassments, as it pleased her humorously to designate them, if the principal factor was not to be mentioned? These contradictions were themselves but an indication of her trouble, and her cry for help, just before, was the only thing he was bound to consider. "You'll be decidedly at variance, all the same," he said in a moment. And as she answered nothing, looking as if she scarce understood, "You'll find yourselves thinking very differently," he continued. "That may easily happen, among the most united couples!" She took up her parasol; he saw she was nervous, afraid of what he might say. "It's a matter we can hardly quarrel about, however," she added; "for almost all the interest is on his side. That's very natural. Pansy's after all his daughter--not mine." And she put out her hand to wish him goodbye. Ralph took an inward resolution that she shouldn't leave him without his letting her know that he knew everything: it seemed too great an opportunity to lose. "Do you know what his interest will make him say?" he asked as he took her hand. She shook her head, rather dryly--not discouragingly--and he went on. "It will make him say that your want of zeal is owing to jealousy." He stopped a moment; her face made him afraid. "To jealousy?" "To jealousy of his daughter." She blushed red and threw back her head. "You're not kind," she said in a voice that he had never heard on her lips. "Be frank with me and you'll see," he answered. But she made no reply; she only pulled her hand out of his own, which he tried still to hold, and rapidly withdrew from the room. She made up her mind to speak to Pansy, and she took an occasion on the same day, going to the girl's room before dinner. Pansy was already dressed; she was always in advance of the time: it seemed to illustrate her pretty patience and the graceful stillness with which she could sit and wait. At present she was seated, in her fresh array, before the bed-room fire; she had blown out her candles on the completion of her toilet, in accordance with the economical habits in which she had been brought up and which she was now more careful than ever to observe; so that the room was lighted only by a couple of logs. The rooms in Palazzo Roccanera were as spacious as they were numerous, and Pansy's virginal bower was an immense chamber with a dark, heavily-timbered ceiling. Its diminutive mistress, in the midst of it, appeared but a speck of humanity, and as she got up, with quick deference, to welcome Isabel, the latter was more than ever struck with her shy sincerity. Isabel had a difficult task--the only thing was to perform it as simply as possible. She felt bitter and angry, but she warned herself against betraying this heat. She was afraid even of looking too grave, or at least too stern; she was afraid of causing alarm. But Pansy seemed to have guessed she had come more or less as a confessor; for after she had moved the chair in which she had been sitting a little nearer to the fire and Isabel had taken her place in it, she kneeled down on a cushion in front of her, looking up and resting her clasped hands on her stepmother's knees. What Isabel wished to do was to hear from her own lips that her mind was not occupied with Lord Warburton; but if she desired the assurance she felt herself by no means at liberty to provoke it. The girl's father would have qualified this as rank treachery; and indeed Isabel knew that if Pansy should display the smallest germ of a disposition to encourage Lord Warburton her own duty was to hold her tongue. It was difficult to interrogate without appearing to suggest; Pansy's supreme simplicity, an innocence even more complete than Isabel had yet judged it, gave to the most tentative enquiry something of the effect of an admonition. As she knelt there in the vague firelight, with her pretty dress dimly shining, her hands folded half in appeal and half in submission, her soft eyes, raised and fixed, full of the seriousness of the situation, she looked to Isabel like a childish martyr decked out for sacrifice and scarcely presuming even to hope to avert it. When Isabel said to her that she had never yet spoken to her of what might have been going on in relation to her getting married, but that her silence had not been indifference or ignorance, had only been the desire to leave her at liberty, Pansy bent forward, raised her face nearer and nearer, and with a little murmur which evidently expressed a deep longing, answered that she had greatly wished her to speak and that she begged her to advise her now. "It's difficult for me to advise you," Isabel returned. "I don't know how I can undertake that. That's for your father; you must get his advice and, above all, you must act on it." At this Pansy dropped her eyes; for a moment she said nothing. "I think I should like your advice better than papa's," she presently remarked. "That's not as it should be," said Isabel coldly. "I love you very much, but your father loves you better." "It isn't because you love me--it's because you're a lady," Pansy answered with the air of saying something very reasonable. "A lady can advise a young girl better than a man." "I advise you then to pay the greatest respect to your father's wishes." "Ah yes," said the child eagerly, "I must do that." "But if I speak to you now about your getting married it's not for your own sake, it's for mine," Isabel went on. "If I try to learn from you what you expect, what you desire, it's only that I may act accordingly." Pansy stared, and then very quickly, "Will you do everything I want?" she asked. "Before I say yes I must know what such things are." Pansy presently told her that the only thing she wanted in life was to marry Mr. Rosier. He had asked her and she had told him she would do so if her papa would allow it. Now her papa wouldn't allow it. "Very well then, it's impossible," Isabel pronounced. "Yes, it's impossible," said Pansy without a sigh and with the same extreme attention in her clear little face. "You must think of something else then," Isabel went on; but Pansy, sighing at this, told her that she had attempted that feat without the least success. "You think of those who think of you," she said with a faint smile. "I know Mr. Rosier thinks of me." "He ought not to," said Isabel loftily. "Your father has expressly requested he shouldn't." "He can't help it, because he knows I think of HIM." "You shouldn't think of him. There's some excuse for him, perhaps; but there's none for you." "I wish you would try to find one," the girl exclaimed as if she were praying to the Madonna. "I should be very sorry to attempt it," said the Madonna with unusual frigidity. "If you knew some one else was thinking of you, would you think of him?" "No one can think of me as Mr. Rosier does; no one has the right." "Ah, but I don't admit Mr. Rosier's right!" Isabel hypocritically cried. Pansy only gazed at her, evidently much puzzled; and Isabel, taking advantage of it, began to represent to her the wretched consequences of disobeying her father. At this Pansy stopped her with the assurance that she would never disobey him, would never marry without his consent. And she announced, in the serenest, simplest tone, that, though she might never marry Mr. Rosier, she would never cease to think of him. She appeared to have accepted the idea of eternal singleness; but Isabel of course was free to reflect that she had no conception of its meaning. She was perfectly sincere; she was prepared to give up her lover. This might seem an important step toward taking another, but for Pansy, evidently, it failed to lead in that direction. She felt no bitterness toward her father; there was no bitterness in her heart; there was only the sweetness of fidelity to Edward Rosier, and a strange, exquisite intimation that she could prove it better by remaining single than even by marrying him. "Your father would like you to make a better marriage," said Isabel. "Mr. Rosier's fortune is not at all large." "How do you mean better--if that would be good enough? And I have myself so little money; why should I look for a fortune?" "Your having so little is a reason for looking for more." With which Isabel was grateful for the dimness of the room; she felt as if her face were hideously insincere. It was what she was doing for Osmond; it was what one had to do for Osmond! Pansy's solemn eyes, fixed on her own, almost embarrassed her; she was ashamed to think she had made so light of the girl's preference. "What should you like me to do?" her companion softly demanded. The question was a terrible one, and Isabel took refuge in timorous vagueness. "To remember all the pleasure it's in your power to give your father." "To marry some one else, you mean--if he should ask me?" For a moment Isabel's answer caused itself to be waited for; then she heard herself utter it in the stillness that Pansy's attention seemed to make. "Yes--to marry some one else." The child's eyes grew more penetrating; Isabel believed she was doubting her sincerity, and the impression took force from her slowly getting up from her cushion. She stood there a moment with her small hands unclasped and then quavered out: "Well, I hope no one will ask me!" "There has been a question of that. Some one else would have been ready to ask you." "I don't think he can have been ready," said Pansy. "It would appear so if he had been sure he'd succeed." "If he had been sure? Then he wasn't ready!" Isabel thought this rather sharp; she also got up and stood a moment looking into the fire. "Lord Warburton has shown you great attention," she resumed; "of course you know it's of him I speak." She found herself, against her expectation, almost placed in the position of justifying herself; which led her to introduce this nobleman more crudely than she had intended. "He has been very kind to me, and I like him very much. But if you mean that he'll propose for me I think you're mistaken." "Perhaps I am. But your father would like it extremely." Pansy shook her head with a little wise smile. "Lord Warburton won't propose simply to please papa." "Your father would like you to encourage him," Isabel went on mechanically. "How can I encourage him?" "I don't know. Your father must tell you that." Pansy said nothing for a moment; she only continued to smile as if she were in possession of a bright assurance. "There's no danger--no danger!" she declared at last. There was a conviction in the way she said this, and a felicity in her believing it, which conduced to Isabel's awkwardness. She felt accused of dishonesty, and the idea was disgusting. To repair her self-respect she was on the point of saying that Lord Warburton had let her know that there was a danger. But she didn't; she only said--in her embarrassment rather wide of the mark--that he surely had been most kind, most friendly. "Yes, he has been very kind," Pansy answered. "That's what I like him for." "Why then is the difficulty so great?" "I've always felt sure of his knowing that I don't want--what did you say I should do?--to encourage him. He knows I don't want to marry, and he wants me to know that he therefore won't trouble me. That's the meaning of his kindness. It's as if he said to me: 'I like you very much, but if it doesn't please you I'll never say it again.' I think that's very kind, very noble," Pansy went on with deepening positiveness. "That is all we've said to each other. And he doesn't care for me either. Ah no, there's no danger." Isabel was touched with wonder at the depths of perception of which this submissive little person was capable; she felt afraid of Pansy's wisdom--began almost to retreat before it. "You must tell your father that," she remarked reservedly. "I think I'd rather not," Pansy unreservedly answered. "You oughtn't to let him have false hopes." "Perhaps not; but it will be good for me that he should. So long as he believes that Lord Warburton intends anything of the kind you say, papa won't propose any one else. And that will be an advantage for me," said the child very lucidly. There was something brilliant in her lucidity, and it made her companion draw a long breath. It relieved this friend of a heavy responsibility. Pansy had a sufficient illumination of her own, and Isabel felt that she herself just now had no light to spare from her small stock. Nevertheless it still clung to her that she must be loyal to Osmond, that she was on her honour in dealing with his daughter. Under the influence of this sentiment she threw out another suggestion before she retired--a suggestion with which it seemed to her that she should have done her utmost. "Your father takes for granted at least that you would like to marry a nobleman." Pansy stood in the open doorway; she had drawn back the curtain for Isabel to pass. "I think Mr. Rosier looks like one!" she remarked very gravely.

Isabel knows that her husband dislikes her visiting Ralph. She thinks of Ralph though as an "apostle of freedom" who allows her to refresh her own mind. However Isabel is very much aware of how her visiting Ralph against the wishes of her husband would not fit the definition of a conventional marriage, and she cowers at the idea that she might end up meeting her husband in open opposition. Sometimes she even Ralph would leave because she is afraid of seeming to repudiate her husband in her defiance. Isabel visits Ralph one day and asks him if Lord Warburton is really in love with Pansy, and Ralph responds that he is not in love with Pansy, implying that he is in love with Isabel. When Ralph treats the matter lightly, Isabel sighs that Ralph gives her no help. Ralph compassionately declares, "How unhappy you must be. since it is the first time she has ever asked for help. Isabel however quickly recovers and brushes the matter off as a "domestic embarrassment. Isabel's mask has only dropped for an instant, and Ralph feels disappointed. He tries again and again to make her betray her husband in words. He feels he hears her cry for help in the fact that she is contradicting herself in matters of domestic embarrassments. Ralph then suggests that Osmond will think Isabel is jealous of Pansy. Isabel blushes at the idea. Later that day, Isabel decides to speak to Pansy. She wants to know how Pansy feels about Lord Warburton. She knows that Osmond would have thought this an act of treachery. Isabel tells Pansy that she wants to know what Pansy desires so that Isabel herself may act accordingly. Pansy tells her that all she wants is to marry Mr. Rosier. Isabel says it is impossible, and that she must think of something else. Isabel explains to Pansy the consequences of disobeying her father, and she also tells him that Edward Rosier does not have enough money to marry her. As she explains this, she feels incredibly insincere. She suggests that Osmond might propose another suitor for marriage, Lord Warburton. Pansy smiles with bright assurance: she is sure that Lord Warburton will not ask. Isabel feels awkward at Pansy's assurance, because she feels like she is being accused of dishonesty. Pansy explains that Warburton is kind enough not to ask

summary

I have already had reason to say that Isabel knew her husband to be displeased by the continuance of Ralph's visit to Rome. That knowledge was very present to her as she went to her cousin's hotel the day after she had invited Lord Warburton to give a tangible proof of his sincerity; and at this moment, as at others, she had a sufficient perception of the sources of Osmond's opposition. He wished her to have no freedom of mind, and he knew perfectly well that Ralph was an apostle of freedom. It was just because he was this, Isabel said to herself, that it was a refreshment to go and see him. It will be perceived that she partook of this refreshment in spite of her husband's aversion to it, that is partook of it, as she flattered herself, discreetly. She had not as yet undertaken to act in direct opposition to his wishes; he was her appointed and inscribed master; she gazed at moments with a sort of incredulous blankness at this fact. It weighed upon her imagination, however; constantly present to her mind were all the traditionary decencies and sanctities of marriage. The idea of violating them filled her with shame as well as with dread, for on giving herself away she had lost sight of this contingency in the perfect belief that her husband's intentions were as generous as her own. She seemed to see, none the less, the rapid approach of the day when she should have to take back something she had solemnly bestown. Such a ceremony would be odious and monstrous; she tried to shut her eyes to it meanwhile. Osmond would do nothing to help it by beginning first; he would put that burden upon her to the end. He had not yet formally forbidden her to call upon Ralph; but she felt sure that unless Ralph should very soon depart this prohibition would come. How could poor Ralph depart? The weather as yet made it impossible. She could perfectly understand her husband's wish for the event; she didn't, to be just, see how he COULD like her to be with her cousin. Ralph never said a word against him, but Osmond's sore, mute protest was none the less founded. If he should positively interpose, if he should put forth his authority, she would have to decide, and that wouldn't be easy. The prospect made her heart beat and her cheeks burn, as I say, in advance; there were moments when, in her wish to avoid an open rupture, she found herself wishing Ralph would start even at a risk. And it was of no use that, when catching herself in this state of mind, she called herself a feeble spirit, a coward. It was not that she loved Ralph less, but that almost anything seemed preferable to repudiating the most serious act--the single sacred act--of her life. That appeared to make the whole future hideous. To break with Osmond once would be to break for ever; any open acknowledgement of irreconcilable needs would be an admission that their whole attempt had proved a failure. For them there could be no condonement, no compromise, no easy forgetfulness, no formal readjustment. They had attempted only one thing, but that one thing was to have been exquisite. Once they missed it nothing else would do; there was no conceivable substitute for that success. For the moment, Isabel went to the Hotel de Paris as often as she thought well; the measure of propriety was in the canon of taste, and there couldn't have been a better proof that morality was, so to speak, a matter of earnest appreciation. Isabel's application of that measure had been particularly free to-day, for in addition to the general truth that she couldn't leave Ralph to die alone she had something important to ask of him. This indeed was Gilbert's business as well as her own. She came very soon to what she wished to speak of. "I want you to answer me a question. It's about Lord Warburton." "I think I guess your question," Ralph answered from his arm-chair, out of which his thin legs protruded at greater length than ever. "Very possibly you guess it. Please then answer it." "Oh, I don't say I can do that." "You're intimate with him," she said; "you've a great deal of observation of him." "Very true. But think how he must dissimulate!" "Why should he dissimulate? That's not his nature." "Ah, you must remember that the circumstances are peculiar," said Ralph with an air of private amusement. "To a certain extent--yes. But is he really in love?" "Very much, I think. I can make that out." "Ah!" said Isabel with a certain dryness. Ralph looked at her as if his mild hilarity had been touched with mystification. "You say that as if you were disappointed." Isabel got up, slowly smoothing her gloves and eyeing them thoughtfully. "It's after all no business of mine." "You're very philosophic," said her cousin. And then in a moment: "May I enquire what you're talking about?" Isabel stared. "I thought you knew. Lord Warburton tells me he wants, of all things in the world, to marry Pansy. I've told you that before, without eliciting a comment from you. You might risk one this morning, I think. Is it your belief that he really cares for her?" "Ah, for Pansy, no!" cried Ralph very positively. "But you said just now he did." Ralph waited a moment. "That he cared for you, Mrs. Osmond." Isabel shook her head gravely. "That's nonsense, you know." "Of course it is. But the nonsense is Warburton's, not mine." "That would be very tiresome." She spoke, as she flattered herself, with much subtlety. "I ought to tell you indeed," Ralph went on, "that to me he has denied it." "It's very good of you to talk about it together! Has he also told you that he's in love with Pansy?" "He has spoken very well of her--very properly. He has let me know, of course, that he thinks she would do very well at Lockleigh." "Does he really think it?" "Ah, what Warburton really thinks--!" said Ralph. Isabel fell to smoothing her gloves again; they were long, loose gloves on which she could freely expend herself. Soon, however, she looked up, and then, "Ah, Ralph, you give me no help!" she cried abruptly and passionately. It was the first time she had alluded to the need for help, and the words shook her cousin with their violence. He gave a long murmur of relief, of pity, of tenderness; it seemed to him that at last the gulf between them had been bridged. It was this that made him exclaim in a moment: "How unhappy you must be!" He had no sooner spoken than she recovered her self-possession, and the first use she made of it was to pretend she had not heard him. "When I talk of your helping me I talk great nonsense," she said with a quick smile. "The idea of my troubling you with my domestic embarrassments! The matter's very simple; Lord Warburton must get on by himself. I can't undertake to see him through." "He ought to succeed easily," said Ralph. Isabel debated. "Yes--but he has not always succeeded." "Very true. You know, however, how that always surprised me. Is Miss Osmond capable of giving us a surprise?" "It will come from him, rather. I seem to see that after all he'll let the matter drop." "He'll do nothing dishonourable," said Ralph. "I'm very sure of that. Nothing can be more honourable than for him to leave the poor child alone. She cares for another person, and it's cruel to attempt to bribe her by magnificent offers to give him up." "Cruel to the other person perhaps--the one she cares for. But Warburton isn't obliged to mind that." "No, cruel to her," said Isabel. "She would be very unhappy if she were to allow herself to be persuaded to desert poor Mr. Rosier. That idea seems to amuse you; of course you're not in love with him. He has the merit--for Pansy--of being in love with Pansy. She can see at a glance that Lord Warburton isn't." "He'd be very good to her," said Ralph. "He has been good to her already. Fortunately, however, he has not said a word to disturb her. He could come and bid her good-bye to-morrow with perfect propriety." "How would your husband like that?" "Not at all; and he may be right in not liking it. Only he must obtain satisfaction himself." "Has he commissioned you to obtain it?" Ralph ventured to ask. "It was natural that as an old friend of Lord Warburton's--an older friend, that is, than Gilbert--I should take an interest in his intentions." "Take an interest in his renouncing them, you mean?" Isabel hesitated, frowning a little. "Let me understand. Are you pleading his cause?" "Not in the least. I'm very glad he shouldn't become your stepdaughter's husband. It makes such a very queer relation to you!" said Ralph, smiling. "But I'm rather nervous lest your husband should think you haven't pushed him enough." Isabel found herself able to smile as well as he. "He knows me well enough not to have expected me to push. He himself has no intention of pushing, I presume. I'm not afraid I shall not be able to justify myself!" she said lightly. Her mask had dropped for an instant, but she had put it on again, to Ralph's infinite disappointment. He had caught a glimpse of her natural face and he wished immensely to look into it. He had an almost savage desire to hear her complain of her husband--hear her say that she should be held accountable for Lord Warburton's defection. Ralph was certain that this was her situation; he knew by instinct, in advance, the form that in such an event Osmond's displeasure would take. It could only take the meanest and cruellest. He would have liked to warn Isabel of it--to let her see at least how he judged for her and how he knew. It little mattered that Isabel would know much better; it was for his own satisfaction more than for hers that he longed to show her he was not deceived. He tried and tried again to make her betray Osmond; he felt cold-blooded, cruel, dishonourable almost, in doing so. But it scarcely mattered, for he only failed. What had she come for then, and why did she seem almost to offer him a chance to violate their tacit convention? Why did she ask him his advice if she gave him no liberty to answer her? How could they talk of her domestic embarrassments, as it pleased her humorously to designate them, if the principal factor was not to be mentioned? These contradictions were themselves but an indication of her trouble, and her cry for help, just before, was the only thing he was bound to consider. "You'll be decidedly at variance, all the same," he said in a moment. And as she answered nothing, looking as if she scarce understood, "You'll find yourselves thinking very differently," he continued. "That may easily happen, among the most united couples!" She took up her parasol; he saw she was nervous, afraid of what he might say. "It's a matter we can hardly quarrel about, however," she added; "for almost all the interest is on his side. That's very natural. Pansy's after all his daughter--not mine." And she put out her hand to wish him goodbye. Ralph took an inward resolution that she shouldn't leave him without his letting her know that he knew everything: it seemed too great an opportunity to lose. "Do you know what his interest will make him say?" he asked as he took her hand. She shook her head, rather dryly--not discouragingly--and he went on. "It will make him say that your want of zeal is owing to jealousy." He stopped a moment; her face made him afraid. "To jealousy?" "To jealousy of his daughter." She blushed red and threw back her head. "You're not kind," she said in a voice that he had never heard on her lips. "Be frank with me and you'll see," he answered. But she made no reply; she only pulled her hand out of his own, which he tried still to hold, and rapidly withdrew from the room. She made up her mind to speak to Pansy, and she took an occasion on the same day, going to the girl's room before dinner. Pansy was already dressed; she was always in advance of the time: it seemed to illustrate her pretty patience and the graceful stillness with which she could sit and wait. At present she was seated, in her fresh array, before the bed-room fire; she had blown out her candles on the completion of her toilet, in accordance with the economical habits in which she had been brought up and which she was now more careful than ever to observe; so that the room was lighted only by a couple of logs. The rooms in Palazzo Roccanera were as spacious as they were numerous, and Pansy's virginal bower was an immense chamber with a dark, heavily-timbered ceiling. Its diminutive mistress, in the midst of it, appeared but a speck of humanity, and as she got up, with quick deference, to welcome Isabel, the latter was more than ever struck with her shy sincerity. Isabel had a difficult task--the only thing was to perform it as simply as possible. She felt bitter and angry, but she warned herself against betraying this heat. She was afraid even of looking too grave, or at least too stern; she was afraid of causing alarm. But Pansy seemed to have guessed she had come more or less as a confessor; for after she had moved the chair in which she had been sitting a little nearer to the fire and Isabel had taken her place in it, she kneeled down on a cushion in front of her, looking up and resting her clasped hands on her stepmother's knees. What Isabel wished to do was to hear from her own lips that her mind was not occupied with Lord Warburton; but if she desired the assurance she felt herself by no means at liberty to provoke it. The girl's father would have qualified this as rank treachery; and indeed Isabel knew that if Pansy should display the smallest germ of a disposition to encourage Lord Warburton her own duty was to hold her tongue. It was difficult to interrogate without appearing to suggest; Pansy's supreme simplicity, an innocence even more complete than Isabel had yet judged it, gave to the most tentative enquiry something of the effect of an admonition. As she knelt there in the vague firelight, with her pretty dress dimly shining, her hands folded half in appeal and half in submission, her soft eyes, raised and fixed, full of the seriousness of the situation, she looked to Isabel like a childish martyr decked out for sacrifice and scarcely presuming even to hope to avert it. When Isabel said to her that she had never yet spoken to her of what might have been going on in relation to her getting married, but that her silence had not been indifference or ignorance, had only been the desire to leave her at liberty, Pansy bent forward, raised her face nearer and nearer, and with a little murmur which evidently expressed a deep longing, answered that she had greatly wished her to speak and that she begged her to advise her now. "It's difficult for me to advise you," Isabel returned. "I don't know how I can undertake that. That's for your father; you must get his advice and, above all, you must act on it." At this Pansy dropped her eyes; for a moment she said nothing. "I think I should like your advice better than papa's," she presently remarked. "That's not as it should be," said Isabel coldly. "I love you very much, but your father loves you better." "It isn't because you love me--it's because you're a lady," Pansy answered with the air of saying something very reasonable. "A lady can advise a young girl better than a man." "I advise you then to pay the greatest respect to your father's wishes." "Ah yes," said the child eagerly, "I must do that." "But if I speak to you now about your getting married it's not for your own sake, it's for mine," Isabel went on. "If I try to learn from you what you expect, what you desire, it's only that I may act accordingly." Pansy stared, and then very quickly, "Will you do everything I want?" she asked. "Before I say yes I must know what such things are." Pansy presently told her that the only thing she wanted in life was to marry Mr. Rosier. He had asked her and she had told him she would do so if her papa would allow it. Now her papa wouldn't allow it. "Very well then, it's impossible," Isabel pronounced. "Yes, it's impossible," said Pansy without a sigh and with the same extreme attention in her clear little face. "You must think of something else then," Isabel went on; but Pansy, sighing at this, told her that she had attempted that feat without the least success. "You think of those who think of you," she said with a faint smile. "I know Mr. Rosier thinks of me." "He ought not to," said Isabel loftily. "Your father has expressly requested he shouldn't." "He can't help it, because he knows I think of HIM." "You shouldn't think of him. There's some excuse for him, perhaps; but there's none for you." "I wish you would try to find one," the girl exclaimed as if she were praying to the Madonna. "I should be very sorry to attempt it," said the Madonna with unusual frigidity. "If you knew some one else was thinking of you, would you think of him?" "No one can think of me as Mr. Rosier does; no one has the right." "Ah, but I don't admit Mr. Rosier's right!" Isabel hypocritically cried. Pansy only gazed at her, evidently much puzzled; and Isabel, taking advantage of it, began to represent to her the wretched consequences of disobeying her father. At this Pansy stopped her with the assurance that she would never disobey him, would never marry without his consent. And she announced, in the serenest, simplest tone, that, though she might never marry Mr. Rosier, she would never cease to think of him. She appeared to have accepted the idea of eternal singleness; but Isabel of course was free to reflect that she had no conception of its meaning. She was perfectly sincere; she was prepared to give up her lover. This might seem an important step toward taking another, but for Pansy, evidently, it failed to lead in that direction. She felt no bitterness toward her father; there was no bitterness in her heart; there was only the sweetness of fidelity to Edward Rosier, and a strange, exquisite intimation that she could prove it better by remaining single than even by marrying him. "Your father would like you to make a better marriage," said Isabel. "Mr. Rosier's fortune is not at all large." "How do you mean better--if that would be good enough? And I have myself so little money; why should I look for a fortune?" "Your having so little is a reason for looking for more." With which Isabel was grateful for the dimness of the room; she felt as if her face were hideously insincere. It was what she was doing for Osmond; it was what one had to do for Osmond! Pansy's solemn eyes, fixed on her own, almost embarrassed her; she was ashamed to think she had made so light of the girl's preference. "What should you like me to do?" her companion softly demanded. The question was a terrible one, and Isabel took refuge in timorous vagueness. "To remember all the pleasure it's in your power to give your father." "To marry some one else, you mean--if he should ask me?" For a moment Isabel's answer caused itself to be waited for; then she heard herself utter it in the stillness that Pansy's attention seemed to make. "Yes--to marry some one else." The child's eyes grew more penetrating; Isabel believed she was doubting her sincerity, and the impression took force from her slowly getting up from her cushion. She stood there a moment with her small hands unclasped and then quavered out: "Well, I hope no one will ask me!" "There has been a question of that. Some one else would have been ready to ask you." "I don't think he can have been ready," said Pansy. "It would appear so if he had been sure he'd succeed." "If he had been sure? Then he wasn't ready!" Isabel thought this rather sharp; she also got up and stood a moment looking into the fire. "Lord Warburton has shown you great attention," she resumed; "of course you know it's of him I speak." She found herself, against her expectation, almost placed in the position of justifying herself; which led her to introduce this nobleman more crudely than she had intended. "He has been very kind to me, and I like him very much. But if you mean that he'll propose for me I think you're mistaken." "Perhaps I am. But your father would like it extremely." Pansy shook her head with a little wise smile. "Lord Warburton won't propose simply to please papa." "Your father would like you to encourage him," Isabel went on mechanically. "How can I encourage him?" "I don't know. Your father must tell you that." Pansy said nothing for a moment; she only continued to smile as if she were in possession of a bright assurance. "There's no danger--no danger!" she declared at last. There was a conviction in the way she said this, and a felicity in her believing it, which conduced to Isabel's awkwardness. She felt accused of dishonesty, and the idea was disgusting. To repair her self-respect she was on the point of saying that Lord Warburton had let her know that there was a danger. But she didn't; she only said--in her embarrassment rather wide of the mark--that he surely had been most kind, most friendly. "Yes, he has been very kind," Pansy answered. "That's what I like him for." "Why then is the difficulty so great?" "I've always felt sure of his knowing that I don't want--what did you say I should do?--to encourage him. He knows I don't want to marry, and he wants me to know that he therefore won't trouble me. That's the meaning of his kindness. It's as if he said to me: 'I like you very much, but if it doesn't please you I'll never say it again.' I think that's very kind, very noble," Pansy went on with deepening positiveness. "That is all we've said to each other. And he doesn't care for me either. Ah no, there's no danger." Isabel was touched with wonder at the depths of perception of which this submissive little person was capable; she felt afraid of Pansy's wisdom--began almost to retreat before it. "You must tell your father that," she remarked reservedly. "I think I'd rather not," Pansy unreservedly answered. "You oughtn't to let him have false hopes." "Perhaps not; but it will be good for me that he should. So long as he believes that Lord Warburton intends anything of the kind you say, papa won't propose any one else. And that will be an advantage for me," said the child very lucidly. There was something brilliant in her lucidity, and it made her companion draw a long breath. It relieved this friend of a heavy responsibility. Pansy had a sufficient illumination of her own, and Isabel felt that she herself just now had no light to spare from her small stock. Nevertheless it still clung to her that she must be loyal to Osmond, that she was on her honour in dealing with his daughter. Under the influence of this sentiment she threw out another suggestion before she retired--a suggestion with which it seemed to her that she should have done her utmost. "Your father takes for granted at least that you would like to marry a nobleman." Pansy stood in the open doorway; she had drawn back the curtain for Isabel to pass. "I think Mr. Rosier looks like one!" she remarked very gravely.

In Chapter 43, Isabel guesses that Warburton may act or abstain from acting on the basis of her own desires: and it is this that makes her refuse to force him to do so. They exchange a look that is very significant for indicating how psychological motivation of two people with good intentions can play off of each other. The narrator tells us that Isabel sees the gleam of an idea in Warburton's eye that Isabel herself is uneasy. This is a very difficult construction: Isabel knows that Warburton is thinking about Isabel's thoughts and desires. The next sentence is attributed neither to Warburton, nor to Isabel - it is simply a statement that "not for an instant should he suspect her of detecting in his proposal... an implication of increased nearness to herself" . It could either mean that Warburton is trying to prevent Isabel from knowing that he is acting all out of his love for Isabel, or it could mean that Isabel notices Warburton is trying to prevent her from knowing his true motivation. Two people with good intentions, in other words, want to act only when they understand other people's desires and motivations, rather than acting purely out of their own self-interest. This seems to be the version of morality that James is propagating: one must understand oneself within a network of social relations and amidst the motivations of others in order to act in a moral way. The conversation between Countess Gemini and Henrietta Stackpole is one of the few conversations we get between two characters of minor importance. It is comical that these two characters get along: Countess Gemini has been described as a frivolous fabulist, and Henrietta Stackpole is very straightforward and honest. Henrietta Stackpole represents the New World and the possibilities open to modern women, insofar as she has an occupation that enables her to travel, think, observe, and be financially independent. Countess Gemini represents the decadence of the Old World, having married for position and money, she is left without any real values. Ralph and Isabel's conversation in Chapter 45 is significant because it shows Isabel finally beginning to move about the cage which Osmond has built for her: she finally starts to assert her own idea of how one should behave in life, rather than following Osmond's conventional way. Convention dictates that a woman should not oppose her husband's will. Isabel here feels that a heavy obligation. However, she realizes that if she convinces Lord Warburton to propose marriage to Pansy, he will only be doing it out of his love for Isabel. In Isabel's conversation with Pansy, in Chapter 46 then, Isabel seems to realize what more concretely what her morality is: she believes that people should act only from their own ideas and desires, and do so in an open and honest way.

analysis

Lord Warburton was not seen in Mrs. Osmond's drawing-room for several days, and Isabel couldn't fail to observe that her husband said nothing to her about having received a letter from him. She couldn't fail to observe, either, that Osmond was in a state of expectancy and that, though it was not agreeable to him to betray it, he thought their distinguished friend kept him waiting quite too long. At the end of four days he alluded to his absence. "What has become of Warburton? What does he mean by treating one like a tradesman with a bill?" "I know nothing about him," Isabel said. "I saw him last Friday at the German ball. He told me then that he meant to write to you." "He has never written to me." "So I supposed, from your not having told me." "He's an odd fish," said Osmond comprehensively. And on Isabel's making no rejoinder he went on to enquire whether it took his lordship five days to indite a letter. "Does he form his words with such difficulty?" "I don't know," Isabel was reduced to replying. "I've never had a letter from him." "Never had a letter? I had an idea that you were at one time in intimate correspondence." She answered that this had not been the case, and let the conversation drop. On the morrow, however, coming into the drawing-room late in the afternoon, her husband took it up again. "When Lord Warburton told you of his intention of writing what did you say to him?" he asked. She just faltered. "I think I told him not to forget it. "Did you believe there was a danger of that?" "As you say, he's an odd fish." "Apparently he has forgotten it," said Osmond. "Be so good as to remind him." "Should you like me to write to him?" she demanded. "I've no objection whatever." "You expect too much of me." "Ah yes, I expect a great deal of you." "I'm afraid I shall disappoint you," said Isabel. "My expectations have survived a good deal of disappointment." "Of course I know that. Think how I must have disappointed myself! If you really wish hands laid on Lord Warburton you must lay them yourself." For a couple of minutes Osmond answered nothing; then he said: "That won't be easy, with you working against me." Isabel started; she felt herself beginning to tremble. He had a way of looking at her through half-closed eyelids, as if he were thinking of her but scarcely saw her, which seemed to her to have a wonderfully cruel intention. It appeared to recognise her as a disagreeable necessity of thought, but to ignore her for the time as a presence. That effect had never been so marked as now. "I think you accuse me of something very base," she returned. "I accuse you of not being trustworthy. If he doesn't after all come forward it will be because you've kept him off. I don't know that it's base: it is the kind of thing a woman always thinks she may do. I've no doubt you've the finest ideas about it." "I told you I would do what I could," she went on. "Yes, that gained you time." It came over her, after he had said this, that she had once thought him beautiful. "How much you must want to make sure of him!" she exclaimed in a moment. She had no sooner spoken than she perceived the full reach of her words, of which she had not been conscious in uttering them. They made a comparison between Osmond and herself, recalled the fact that she had once held this coveted treasure in her hand and felt herself rich enough to let it fall. A momentary exultation took possession of her--a horrible delight in having wounded him; for his face instantly told her that none of the force of her exclamation was lost. He expressed nothing otherwise, however; he only said quickly: "Yes, I want it immensely." At this moment a servant came in to usher a visitor, and he was followed the next by Lord Warburton, who received a visible check on seeing Osmond. He looked rapidly from the master of the house to the mistress; a movement that seemed to denote a reluctance to interrupt or even a perception of ominous conditions. Then he advanced, with his English address, in which a vague shyness seemed to offer itself as an element of good-breeding; in which the only defect was a difficulty in achieving transitions. Osmond was embarrassed; he found nothing to say; but Isabel remarked, promptly enough, that they had been in the act of talking about their visitor. Upon this her husband added that they hadn't known what was become of him--they had been afraid he had gone away. "No," he explained, smiling and looking at Osmond; "I'm only on the point of going." And then he mentioned that he found himself suddenly recalled to England: he should start on the morrow or the day after. "I'm awfully sorry to leave poor Touchett!" he ended by exclaiming. For a moment neither of his companions spoke; Osmond only leaned back in his chair, listening. Isabel didn't look at him; she could only fancy how he looked. Her eyes were on their visitor's face, where they were the more free to rest that those of his lordship carefully avoided them. Yet Isabel was sure that had she met his glance she would have found it expressive. "You had better take poor Touchett with you," she heard her husband say, lightly enough, in a moment. "He had better wait for warmer weather," Lord Warburton answered. "I shouldn't advise him to travel just now." He sat there a quarter of an hour, talking as if he might not soon see them again--unless indeed they should come to England, a course he strongly recommended. Why shouldn't they come to England in the autumn?--that struck him as a very happy thought. It would give him such pleasure to do what he could for them--to have them come and spend a month with him. Osmond, by his own admission, had been to England but once; which was an absurd state of things for a man of his leisure and intelligence. It was just the country for him--he would be sure to get on well there. Then Lord Warburton asked Isabel if she remembered what a good time she had had there and if she didn't want to try it again. Didn't she want to see Gardencourt once more? Gardencourt was really very good. Touchett didn't take proper care of it, but it was the sort of place you could hardly spoil by letting it alone. Why didn't they come and pay Touchett a visit? He surely must have asked them. Hadn't asked them? What an ill-mannered wretch!--and Lord Warburton promised to give the master of Gardencourt a piece of his mind. Of course it was a mere accident; he would be delighted to have them. Spending a month with Touchett and a month with himself, and seeing all the rest of the people they must know there, they really wouldn't find it half bad. Lord Warburton added that it would amuse Miss Osmond as well, who had told him that she had never been to England and whom he had assured it was a country she deserved to see. Of course she didn't need to go to England to be admired--that was her fate everywhere; but she would be an immense success there, she certainly would, if that was any inducement. He asked if she were not at home: couldn't he say good-bye? Not that he liked good-byes--he always funked them. When he left England the other day he hadn't said good-bye to a two-legged creature. He had had half a mind to leave Rome without troubling Mrs. Osmond for a final interview. What could be more dreary than final interviews? One never said the things one wanted--one remembered them all an hour afterwards. On the other hand one usually said a lot of things one shouldn't, simply from a sense that one had to say something. Such a sense was upsetting; it muddled one's wits. He had it at present, and that was the effect it produced on him. If Mrs. Osmond didn't think he spoke as he ought she must set it down to agitation; it was no light thing to part with Mrs. Osmond. He was really very sorry to be going. He had thought of writing to her instead of calling--but he would write to her at any rate, to tell her a lot of things that would be sure to occur to him as soon as he had left the house. They must think seriously about coming to Lockleigh. If there was anything awkward in the conditions of his visit or in the announcement of his departure it failed to come to the surface. Lord Warburton talked about his agitation; but he showed it in no other manner, and Isabel saw that since he had determined on a retreat he was capable of executing it gallantly. She was very glad for him; she liked him quite well enough to wish him to appear to carry a thing off. He would do that on any occasion--not from impudence but simply from the habit of success; and Isabel felt it out of her husband's power to frustrate this faculty. A complex operation, as she sat there, went on in her mind. On one side she listened to their visitor; said what was proper to him; read, more or less, between the lines of what he said himself; and wondered how he would have spoken if he had found her alone. On the other she had a perfect consciousness of Osmond's emotion. She felt almost sorry for him; he was condemned to the sharp pain of loss without the relief of cursing. He had had a great hope, and now, as he saw it vanish into smoke, he was obliged to sit and smile and twirl his thumbs. Not that he troubled himself to smile very brightly; he treated their friend on the whole to as vacant a countenance as so clever a man could very well wear. It was indeed a part of Osmond's cleverness that he could look consummately uncompromised. His present appearance, however, was not a confession of disappointment; it was simply a part of Osmond's habitual system, which was to be inexpressive exactly in proportion as he was really intent. He had been intent on this prize from the first; but he had never allowed his eagerness to irradiate his refined face. He had treated his possible son-in-law as he treated every one--with an air of being interested in him only for his own advantage, not for any profit to a person already so generally, so perfectly provided as Gilbert Osmond. He would give no sign now of an inward rage which was the result of a vanished prospect of gain--not the faintest nor subtlest. Isabel could be sure of that, if it was any satisfaction to her. Strangely, very strangely, it was a satisfaction; she wished Lord Warburton to triumph before her husband, and at the same time she wished her husband to be very superior before Lord Warburton. Osmond, in his way, was admirable; he had, like their visitor, the advantage of an acquired habit. It was not that of succeeding, but it was something almost as good--that of not attempting. As he leaned back in his place, listening but vaguely to the other's friendly offers and suppressed explanations--as if it were only proper to assume that they were addressed essentially to his wife--he had at least (since so little else was left him) the comfort of thinking how well he personally had kept out of it, and how the air of indifference, which he was now able to wear, had the added beauty of consistency. It was something to be able to look as if the leave-taker's movements had no relation to his own mind. The latter did well, certainly; but Osmond's performance was in its very nature more finished. Lord Warburton's position was after all an easy one; there was no reason in the world why he shouldn't leave Rome. He had had beneficent inclinations, but they had stopped short of fruition; he had never committed himself, and his honour was safe. Osmond appeared to take but a moderate interest in the proposal that they should go and stay with him and in his allusion to the success Pansy might extract from their visit. He murmured a recognition, but left Isabel to say that it was a matter requiring grave consideration. Isabel, even while she made this remark, could see the great vista which had suddenly opened out in her husband's mind, with Pansy's little figure marching up the middle of it. Lord Warburton had asked leave to bid good-bye to Pansy, but neither Isabel nor Osmond had made any motion to send for her. He had the air of giving out that his visit must be short; he sat on a small chair, as if it were only for a moment, keeping his hat in his hand. But he stayed and stayed; Isabel wondered what he was waiting for. She believed it was not to see Pansy; she had an impression that on the whole he would rather not see Pansy. It was of course to see herself alone--he had something to say to her. Isabel had no great wish to hear it, for she was afraid it would be an explanation, and she could perfectly dispense with explanations. Osmond, however, presently got up, like a man of good taste to whom it had occurred that so inveterate a visitor might wish to say just the last word of all to the ladies. "I've a letter to write before dinner," he said; "you must excuse me. I'll see if my daughter's disengaged, and if she is she shall know you're here. Of course when you come to Rome you'll always look us up. Mrs. Osmond will talk to you about the English expedition: she decides all those things." The nod with which, instead of a hand-shake, he wound up this little speech was perhaps rather a meagre form of salutation; but on the whole it was all the occasion demanded. Isabel reflected that after he left the room Lord Warburton would have no pretext for saying, "Your husband'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!" It was only when they had been left alone together that her friend showed a certain vague awkwardness--sitting down in another chair, handling two or three of the objects that were near him. "I hope he'll make Miss Osmond come," he presently remarked. "I want very much to see her." "I'm glad it's the last time," said Isabel. "So am I. She doesn't care for me." "No, she doesn't care for you." "I don't wonder at it," he returned. Then he added with inconsequence: "You'll come to England, won't you?" "I think we had better not." "Ah, you owe me a visit. Don't you remember that you were to have come to Lockleigh once, and you never did?" "Everything's changed since then," said Isabel. "Not changed for the worse, surely--as far as we're concerned. To see you under my roof"--and he hung fire but an instant--"would be a great satisfaction." She had feared an explanation; but that was the only one that occurred. They talked a little of Ralph, and in another moment Pansy came in, already dressed for dinner and with a little red spot in either cheek. She shook hands with Lord Warburton and stood looking up into his face with a fixed smile--a smile that Isabel knew, though his lordship probably never suspected it, to be near akin to a burst of tears. "I'm going away," he said. "I want to bid you good-bye." "Good-bye, Lord Warburton." Her voice perceptibly trembled. "And I want to tell you how much I wish you may be very happy." "Thank you, Lord Warburton," Pansy answered. He lingered a moment and gave a glance at Isabel. "You ought to be very happy--you've got a guardian angel." "I'm sure I shall be happy," said Pansy in the tone of a person whose certainties were always cheerful. "Such a conviction as that will take you a great way. But if it should ever fail you, remember--remember--" And her interlocutor stammered a little. "Think of me sometimes, you know!" he said with a vague laugh. Then he shook hands with Isabel in silence, and presently he was gone. When he had left the room she expected an effusion of tears from her stepdaughter; but Pansy in fact treated her to something very different. "I think you ARE my guardian angel!" she exclaimed very sweetly. Isabel shook her head. "I'm not an angel of any kind. I'm at the most your good friend." "You're a very good friend then--to have asked papa to be gentle with me." "I've asked your father nothing," said Isabel, wondering. "He told me just now to come to the drawing-room, and then he gave me a very kind kiss." "Ah," said Isabel, "that was quite his own idea!" She recognised the idea perfectly; it was very characteristic, and she was to see a great deal more of it. Even with Pansy he couldn't put himself the least in the wrong. They were dining out that day, and after their dinner they went to another entertainment; so that it was not till late in the evening that Isabel saw him alone. When Pansy kissed him before going to bed he returned her embrace with even more than his usual munificence, and Isabel wondered if he meant it as a hint that his daughter had been injured by the machinations of her stepmother. It was a partial expression, at any rate, of what he continued to expect of his wife. She was about to follow Pansy, but he remarked that he wished she would remain; he had something to say to her. Then he walked about the drawing-room a little, while she stood waiting in her cloak. "I don't understand what you wish to do," he said in a moment. "I should like to know--so that I may know how to act." "Just now I wish to go to bed. I'm very tired." "Sit down and rest; I shall not keep you long. Not there--take a comfortable place." And he arranged a multitude of cushions that were scattered in picturesque disorder upon a vast divan. This was not, however, where she seated herself; she dropped into the nearest chair. The fire had gone out; the lights in the great room were few. She drew her cloak about her; she felt mortally cold. "I think you're trying to humiliate me," Osmond went on. "It's a most absurd undertaking." "I haven't the least idea what you mean," she returned. "You've played a very deep game; you've managed it beautifully." "What is it that I've managed?" "You've not quite settled it, however; we shall see him again." And he stopped in front of her, with his hands in his pockets, looking down at her thoughtfully, in his usual way, which seemed meant to let her know that she was not an object, but only a rather disagreeable incident, of thought. "If you mean that Lord Warburton's under an obligation to come back you're wrong," Isabel said. "He's under none whatever." "That's just what I complain of. But when I say he'll come back I don't mean he'll come from a sense of duty." "There's nothing else to make him. I think he has quite exhausted Rome." "Ah no, that's a shallow judgement. Rome's inexhaustible." And Osmond began to walk about again. "However, about that perhaps there's no hurry," he added. "It's rather a good idea of his that we should go to England. If it were not for the fear of finding your cousin there I think I should try to persuade you." "It may be that you'll not find my cousin," said Isabel. "I should like to be sure of it. However, I shall be as sure as possible. At the same time I should like to see his house, that you told me so much about at one time: what do you call it?--Gardencourt. It must be a charming thing. And then, you know, I've a devotion to the memory of your uncle: you made me take a great fancy to him. I should like to see where he lived and died. That indeed is a detail. Your friend was right. Pansy ought to see England." "I've no doubt she would enjoy it," said Isabel. "But that's a long time hence; next autumn's far off," Osmond continued; "and meantime there are things that more nearly interest us. Do you think me so very proud?" he suddenly asked. "I think you very strange." "You don't understand me." "No, not even when you insult me." "I don't insult you; I'm incapable of it. I merely speak of certain facts, and if the allusion's an injury to you the fault's not mine. It's surely a fact that you have kept all this matter quite in your own hands." "Are you going back to Lord Warburton?" Isabel asked. "I'm very tired of his name." "You shall hear it again before we've done with it." She had spoken of his insulting her, but it suddenly seemed to her that this ceased to be a pain. He was going down--down; the vision of such a fall made her almost giddy: that was the only pain. He was too strange, too different; he didn't touch her. Still, the working of his morbid passion was extraordinary, and she felt a rising curiosity to know in what light he saw himself justified. "I might say to you that I judge you've nothing to say to me that's worth hearing," she returned in a moment. "But I should perhaps be wrong. There's a thing that would be worth my hearing--to know in the plainest words of what it is you accuse me." "Of having prevented Pansy's marriage to Warburton. Are those words plain enough?" "On the contrary, I took a great interest in it. I told you so; and when you told me that you counted on me--that I think was what you said--I accepted the obligation. I was a fool to do so, but I did it." "You pretended to do it, and you even pretended reluctance to make me more willing to trust you. Then you began to use your ingenuity to get him out of the way." "I think I see what you mean," said Isabel. "Where's the letter you told me he had written me?" her husband demanded. "I haven't the least idea; I haven't asked him." "You stopped it on the way," said Osmond. Isabel slowly got up; standing there in her white cloak, which covered her to her feet, she might have represented the angel of disdain, first cousin to that of pity. "Oh, Gilbert, for a man who was so fine--!" she exclaimed in a long murmur. "I was never so fine as you. You've done everything you wanted. You've got him out of the way without appearing to do so, and you've placed me in the position in which you wished to see me--that of a man who has tried to marry his daughter to a lord, but has grotesquely failed." "Pansy doesn't care for him. She's very glad he's gone," Isabel said. "That has nothing to do with the matter." "And he doesn't care for Pansy." "That won't do; you told me he did. I don't know why you wanted this particular satisfaction," Osmond continued; "you might have taken some other. It doesn't seem to me that I've been presumptuous--that I have taken too much for granted. I've been very modest about it, very quiet. The idea didn't originate with me. He began to show that he liked her before I ever thought of it. I left it all to you." "Yes, you were very glad to leave it to me. After this you must attend to such things yourself." He looked at her a moment; then he turned away. "I thought you were very fond of my daughter." "I've never been more so than to-day." "Your affection is attended with immense limitations. However, that perhaps is natural." "Is this all you wished to say to me?" Isabel asked, taking a candle that stood on one of the tables. "Are you satisfied? Am I sufficiently disappointed?" "I don't think that on the whole you're disappointed. You've had another opportunity to try to stupefy me." "It's not that. It's proved that Pansy can aim high." "Poor little Pansy!" said Isabel as she turned away with her candle.

Osmond begins to think it is odd that Lord Warburton has not yet written to him to ask for Pansy's hand in marriage. Osmond asks Isabel to remind Lord Warburton to write. Isabel tells him to do so himself. Osmond retorts that Isabel is working against him. Isabel begins to tremble. She notes, "How much you must want to make sure of him. She feels delight at having wounded him. Lord Warburton suddenly arrives. He announces that he will be leaving soon, and he speaks as if he will not be seeing them for quite some time more. A complex operation occurs in Isabel's mind as Warburton gallantly departs. She listens to Warburton, reading between the lines of what he said. On the other side of her mind, she knows Osmond's emotions. She almost feels sorry for him as his hopes vanish. But she also sees how proportionate his inexpressiveness is to his indifference. As his hopes vanish, she sees how he had the comfort of thinking how well he had kept out of the whole affair, as if he had been indifferent the entire time. Lord Warburton begins to stay and chat for an awkwardly long time. Osmond excuses himself. Pansy is sent into the room, and Warburton tells her that Pansy has a "guardian angel". He then retreats. Pansy tells Isabel that she is her guardian angel. Pansy believes that Isabel has asked Osmond to be gentle with her, but Isabel recognizes that Osmond is only gentle because he can never be put in the wrong with his daughter. When Isabel is about to go to bed, Osmond calls her into the drawing room. He asks what she means to do. She responds that she has no intentions. Osmond believes she is trying to humiliate him, playing a very deep game. Isabel tells him that Pansy did not like Lord Warburton, and Osmond simply dismisses this as an unimportant detail

summary

Lord Warburton was not seen in Mrs. Osmond's drawing-room for several days, and Isabel couldn't fail to observe that her husband said nothing to her about having received a letter from him. She couldn't fail to observe, either, that Osmond was in a state of expectancy and that, though it was not agreeable to him to betray it, he thought their distinguished friend kept him waiting quite too long. At the end of four days he alluded to his absence. "What has become of Warburton? What does he mean by treating one like a tradesman with a bill?" "I know nothing about him," Isabel said. "I saw him last Friday at the German ball. He told me then that he meant to write to you." "He has never written to me." "So I supposed, from your not having told me." "He's an odd fish," said Osmond comprehensively. And on Isabel's making no rejoinder he went on to enquire whether it took his lordship five days to indite a letter. "Does he form his words with such difficulty?" "I don't know," Isabel was reduced to replying. "I've never had a letter from him." "Never had a letter? I had an idea that you were at one time in intimate correspondence." She answered that this had not been the case, and let the conversation drop. On the morrow, however, coming into the drawing-room late in the afternoon, her husband took it up again. "When Lord Warburton told you of his intention of writing what did you say to him?" he asked. She just faltered. "I think I told him not to forget it. "Did you believe there was a danger of that?" "As you say, he's an odd fish." "Apparently he has forgotten it," said Osmond. "Be so good as to remind him." "Should you like me to write to him?" she demanded. "I've no objection whatever." "You expect too much of me." "Ah yes, I expect a great deal of you." "I'm afraid I shall disappoint you," said Isabel. "My expectations have survived a good deal of disappointment." "Of course I know that. Think how I must have disappointed myself! If you really wish hands laid on Lord Warburton you must lay them yourself." For a couple of minutes Osmond answered nothing; then he said: "That won't be easy, with you working against me." Isabel started; she felt herself beginning to tremble. He had a way of looking at her through half-closed eyelids, as if he were thinking of her but scarcely saw her, which seemed to her to have a wonderfully cruel intention. It appeared to recognise her as a disagreeable necessity of thought, but to ignore her for the time as a presence. That effect had never been so marked as now. "I think you accuse me of something very base," she returned. "I accuse you of not being trustworthy. If he doesn't after all come forward it will be because you've kept him off. I don't know that it's base: it is the kind of thing a woman always thinks she may do. I've no doubt you've the finest ideas about it." "I told you I would do what I could," she went on. "Yes, that gained you time." It came over her, after he had said this, that she had once thought him beautiful. "How much you must want to make sure of him!" she exclaimed in a moment. She had no sooner spoken than she perceived the full reach of her words, of which she had not been conscious in uttering them. They made a comparison between Osmond and herself, recalled the fact that she had once held this coveted treasure in her hand and felt herself rich enough to let it fall. A momentary exultation took possession of her--a horrible delight in having wounded him; for his face instantly told her that none of the force of her exclamation was lost. He expressed nothing otherwise, however; he only said quickly: "Yes, I want it immensely." At this moment a servant came in to usher a visitor, and he was followed the next by Lord Warburton, who received a visible check on seeing Osmond. He looked rapidly from the master of the house to the mistress; a movement that seemed to denote a reluctance to interrupt or even a perception of ominous conditions. Then he advanced, with his English address, in which a vague shyness seemed to offer itself as an element of good-breeding; in which the only defect was a difficulty in achieving transitions. Osmond was embarrassed; he found nothing to say; but Isabel remarked, promptly enough, that they had been in the act of talking about their visitor. Upon this her husband added that they hadn't known what was become of him--they had been afraid he had gone away. "No," he explained, smiling and looking at Osmond; "I'm only on the point of going." And then he mentioned that he found himself suddenly recalled to England: he should start on the morrow or the day after. "I'm awfully sorry to leave poor Touchett!" he ended by exclaiming. For a moment neither of his companions spoke; Osmond only leaned back in his chair, listening. Isabel didn't look at him; she could only fancy how he looked. Her eyes were on their visitor's face, where they were the more free to rest that those of his lordship carefully avoided them. Yet Isabel was sure that had she met his glance she would have found it expressive. "You had better take poor Touchett with you," she heard her husband say, lightly enough, in a moment. "He had better wait for warmer weather," Lord Warburton answered. "I shouldn't advise him to travel just now." He sat there a quarter of an hour, talking as if he might not soon see them again--unless indeed they should come to England, a course he strongly recommended. Why shouldn't they come to England in the autumn?--that struck him as a very happy thought. It would give him such pleasure to do what he could for them--to have them come and spend a month with him. Osmond, by his own admission, had been to England but once; which was an absurd state of things for a man of his leisure and intelligence. It was just the country for him--he would be sure to get on well there. Then Lord Warburton asked Isabel if she remembered what a good time she had had there and if she didn't want to try it again. Didn't she want to see Gardencourt once more? Gardencourt was really very good. Touchett didn't take proper care of it, but it was the sort of place you could hardly spoil by letting it alone. Why didn't they come and pay Touchett a visit? He surely must have asked them. Hadn't asked them? What an ill-mannered wretch!--and Lord Warburton promised to give the master of Gardencourt a piece of his mind. Of course it was a mere accident; he would be delighted to have them. Spending a month with Touchett and a month with himself, and seeing all the rest of the people they must know there, they really wouldn't find it half bad. Lord Warburton added that it would amuse Miss Osmond as well, who had told him that she had never been to England and whom he had assured it was a country she deserved to see. Of course she didn't need to go to England to be admired--that was her fate everywhere; but she would be an immense success there, she certainly would, if that was any inducement. He asked if she were not at home: couldn't he say good-bye? Not that he liked good-byes--he always funked them. When he left England the other day he hadn't said good-bye to a two-legged creature. He had had half a mind to leave Rome without troubling Mrs. Osmond for a final interview. What could be more dreary than final interviews? One never said the things one wanted--one remembered them all an hour afterwards. On the other hand one usually said a lot of things one shouldn't, simply from a sense that one had to say something. Such a sense was upsetting; it muddled one's wits. He had it at present, and that was the effect it produced on him. If Mrs. Osmond didn't think he spoke as he ought she must set it down to agitation; it was no light thing to part with Mrs. Osmond. He was really very sorry to be going. He had thought of writing to her instead of calling--but he would write to her at any rate, to tell her a lot of things that would be sure to occur to him as soon as he had left the house. They must think seriously about coming to Lockleigh. If there was anything awkward in the conditions of his visit or in the announcement of his departure it failed to come to the surface. Lord Warburton talked about his agitation; but he showed it in no other manner, and Isabel saw that since he had determined on a retreat he was capable of executing it gallantly. She was very glad for him; she liked him quite well enough to wish him to appear to carry a thing off. He would do that on any occasion--not from impudence but simply from the habit of success; and Isabel felt it out of her husband's power to frustrate this faculty. A complex operation, as she sat there, went on in her mind. On one side she listened to their visitor; said what was proper to him; read, more or less, between the lines of what he said himself; and wondered how he would have spoken if he had found her alone. On the other she had a perfect consciousness of Osmond's emotion. She felt almost sorry for him; he was condemned to the sharp pain of loss without the relief of cursing. He had had a great hope, and now, as he saw it vanish into smoke, he was obliged to sit and smile and twirl his thumbs. Not that he troubled himself to smile very brightly; he treated their friend on the whole to as vacant a countenance as so clever a man could very well wear. It was indeed a part of Osmond's cleverness that he could look consummately uncompromised. His present appearance, however, was not a confession of disappointment; it was simply a part of Osmond's habitual system, which was to be inexpressive exactly in proportion as he was really intent. He had been intent on this prize from the first; but he had never allowed his eagerness to irradiate his refined face. He had treated his possible son-in-law as he treated every one--with an air of being interested in him only for his own advantage, not for any profit to a person already so generally, so perfectly provided as Gilbert Osmond. He would give no sign now of an inward rage which was the result of a vanished prospect of gain--not the faintest nor subtlest. Isabel could be sure of that, if it was any satisfaction to her. Strangely, very strangely, it was a satisfaction; she wished Lord Warburton to triumph before her husband, and at the same time she wished her husband to be very superior before Lord Warburton. Osmond, in his way, was admirable; he had, like their visitor, the advantage of an acquired habit. It was not that of succeeding, but it was something almost as good--that of not attempting. As he leaned back in his place, listening but vaguely to the other's friendly offers and suppressed explanations--as if it were only proper to assume that they were addressed essentially to his wife--he had at least (since so little else was left him) the comfort of thinking how well he personally had kept out of it, and how the air of indifference, which he was now able to wear, had the added beauty of consistency. It was something to be able to look as if the leave-taker's movements had no relation to his own mind. The latter did well, certainly; but Osmond's performance was in its very nature more finished. Lord Warburton's position was after all an easy one; there was no reason in the world why he shouldn't leave Rome. He had had beneficent inclinations, but they had stopped short of fruition; he had never committed himself, and his honour was safe. Osmond appeared to take but a moderate interest in the proposal that they should go and stay with him and in his allusion to the success Pansy might extract from their visit. He murmured a recognition, but left Isabel to say that it was a matter requiring grave consideration. Isabel, even while she made this remark, could see the great vista which had suddenly opened out in her husband's mind, with Pansy's little figure marching up the middle of it. Lord Warburton had asked leave to bid good-bye to Pansy, but neither Isabel nor Osmond had made any motion to send for her. He had the air of giving out that his visit must be short; he sat on a small chair, as if it were only for a moment, keeping his hat in his hand. But he stayed and stayed; Isabel wondered what he was waiting for. She believed it was not to see Pansy; she had an impression that on the whole he would rather not see Pansy. It was of course to see herself alone--he had something to say to her. Isabel had no great wish to hear it, for she was afraid it would be an explanation, and she could perfectly dispense with explanations. Osmond, however, presently got up, like a man of good taste to whom it had occurred that so inveterate a visitor might wish to say just the last word of all to the ladies. "I've a letter to write before dinner," he said; "you must excuse me. I'll see if my daughter's disengaged, and if she is she shall know you're here. Of course when you come to Rome you'll always look us up. Mrs. Osmond will talk to you about the English expedition: she decides all those things." The nod with which, instead of a hand-shake, he wound up this little speech was perhaps rather a meagre form of salutation; but on the whole it was all the occasion demanded. Isabel reflected that after he left the room Lord Warburton would have no pretext for saying, "Your husband'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!" It was only when they had been left alone together that her friend showed a certain vague awkwardness--sitting down in another chair, handling two or three of the objects that were near him. "I hope he'll make Miss Osmond come," he presently remarked. "I want very much to see her." "I'm glad it's the last time," said Isabel. "So am I. She doesn't care for me." "No, she doesn't care for you." "I don't wonder at it," he returned. Then he added with inconsequence: "You'll come to England, won't you?" "I think we had better not." "Ah, you owe me a visit. Don't you remember that you were to have come to Lockleigh once, and you never did?" "Everything's changed since then," said Isabel. "Not changed for the worse, surely--as far as we're concerned. To see you under my roof"--and he hung fire but an instant--"would be a great satisfaction." She had feared an explanation; but that was the only one that occurred. They talked a little of Ralph, and in another moment Pansy came in, already dressed for dinner and with a little red spot in either cheek. She shook hands with Lord Warburton and stood looking up into his face with a fixed smile--a smile that Isabel knew, though his lordship probably never suspected it, to be near akin to a burst of tears. "I'm going away," he said. "I want to bid you good-bye." "Good-bye, Lord Warburton." Her voice perceptibly trembled. "And I want to tell you how much I wish you may be very happy." "Thank you, Lord Warburton," Pansy answered. He lingered a moment and gave a glance at Isabel. "You ought to be very happy--you've got a guardian angel." "I'm sure I shall be happy," said Pansy in the tone of a person whose certainties were always cheerful. "Such a conviction as that will take you a great way. But if it should ever fail you, remember--remember--" And her interlocutor stammered a little. "Think of me sometimes, you know!" he said with a vague laugh. Then he shook hands with Isabel in silence, and presently he was gone. When he had left the room she expected an effusion of tears from her stepdaughter; but Pansy in fact treated her to something very different. "I think you ARE my guardian angel!" she exclaimed very sweetly. Isabel shook her head. "I'm not an angel of any kind. I'm at the most your good friend." "You're a very good friend then--to have asked papa to be gentle with me." "I've asked your father nothing," said Isabel, wondering. "He told me just now to come to the drawing-room, and then he gave me a very kind kiss." "Ah," said Isabel, "that was quite his own idea!" She recognised the idea perfectly; it was very characteristic, and she was to see a great deal more of it. Even with Pansy he couldn't put himself the least in the wrong. They were dining out that day, and after their dinner they went to another entertainment; so that it was not till late in the evening that Isabel saw him alone. When Pansy kissed him before going to bed he returned her embrace with even more than his usual munificence, and Isabel wondered if he meant it as a hint that his daughter had been injured by the machinations of her stepmother. It was a partial expression, at any rate, of what he continued to expect of his wife. She was about to follow Pansy, but he remarked that he wished she would remain; he had something to say to her. Then he walked about the drawing-room a little, while she stood waiting in her cloak. "I don't understand what you wish to do," he said in a moment. "I should like to know--so that I may know how to act." "Just now I wish to go to bed. I'm very tired." "Sit down and rest; I shall not keep you long. Not there--take a comfortable place." And he arranged a multitude of cushions that were scattered in picturesque disorder upon a vast divan. This was not, however, where she seated herself; she dropped into the nearest chair. The fire had gone out; the lights in the great room were few. She drew her cloak about her; she felt mortally cold. "I think you're trying to humiliate me," Osmond went on. "It's a most absurd undertaking." "I haven't the least idea what you mean," she returned. "You've played a very deep game; you've managed it beautifully." "What is it that I've managed?" "You've not quite settled it, however; we shall see him again." And he stopped in front of her, with his hands in his pockets, looking down at her thoughtfully, in his usual way, which seemed meant to let her know that she was not an object, but only a rather disagreeable incident, of thought. "If you mean that Lord Warburton's under an obligation to come back you're wrong," Isabel said. "He's under none whatever." "That's just what I complain of. But when I say he'll come back I don't mean he'll come from a sense of duty." "There's nothing else to make him. I think he has quite exhausted Rome." "Ah no, that's a shallow judgement. Rome's inexhaustible." And Osmond began to walk about again. "However, about that perhaps there's no hurry," he added. "It's rather a good idea of his that we should go to England. If it were not for the fear of finding your cousin there I think I should try to persuade you." "It may be that you'll not find my cousin," said Isabel. "I should like to be sure of it. However, I shall be as sure as possible. At the same time I should like to see his house, that you told me so much about at one time: what do you call it?--Gardencourt. It must be a charming thing. And then, you know, I've a devotion to the memory of your uncle: you made me take a great fancy to him. I should like to see where he lived and died. That indeed is a detail. Your friend was right. Pansy ought to see England." "I've no doubt she would enjoy it," said Isabel. "But that's a long time hence; next autumn's far off," Osmond continued; "and meantime there are things that more nearly interest us. Do you think me so very proud?" he suddenly asked. "I think you very strange." "You don't understand me." "No, not even when you insult me." "I don't insult you; I'm incapable of it. I merely speak of certain facts, and if the allusion's an injury to you the fault's not mine. It's surely a fact that you have kept all this matter quite in your own hands." "Are you going back to Lord Warburton?" Isabel asked. "I'm very tired of his name." "You shall hear it again before we've done with it." She had spoken of his insulting her, but it suddenly seemed to her that this ceased to be a pain. He was going down--down; the vision of such a fall made her almost giddy: that was the only pain. He was too strange, too different; he didn't touch her. Still, the working of his morbid passion was extraordinary, and she felt a rising curiosity to know in what light he saw himself justified. "I might say to you that I judge you've nothing to say to me that's worth hearing," she returned in a moment. "But I should perhaps be wrong. There's a thing that would be worth my hearing--to know in the plainest words of what it is you accuse me." "Of having prevented Pansy's marriage to Warburton. Are those words plain enough?" "On the contrary, I took a great interest in it. I told you so; and when you told me that you counted on me--that I think was what you said--I accepted the obligation. I was a fool to do so, but I did it." "You pretended to do it, and you even pretended reluctance to make me more willing to trust you. Then you began to use your ingenuity to get him out of the way." "I think I see what you mean," said Isabel. "Where's the letter you told me he had written me?" her husband demanded. "I haven't the least idea; I haven't asked him." "You stopped it on the way," said Osmond. Isabel slowly got up; standing there in her white cloak, which covered her to her feet, she might have represented the angel of disdain, first cousin to that of pity. "Oh, Gilbert, for a man who was so fine--!" she exclaimed in a long murmur. "I was never so fine as you. You've done everything you wanted. You've got him out of the way without appearing to do so, and you've placed me in the position in which you wished to see me--that of a man who has tried to marry his daughter to a lord, but has grotesquely failed." "Pansy doesn't care for him. She's very glad he's gone," Isabel said. "That has nothing to do with the matter." "And he doesn't care for Pansy." "That won't do; you told me he did. I don't know why you wanted this particular satisfaction," Osmond continued; "you might have taken some other. It doesn't seem to me that I've been presumptuous--that I have taken too much for granted. I've been very modest about it, very quiet. The idea didn't originate with me. He began to show that he liked her before I ever thought of it. I left it all to you." "Yes, you were very glad to leave it to me. After this you must attend to such things yourself." He looked at her a moment; then he turned away. "I thought you were very fond of my daughter." "I've never been more so than to-day." "Your affection is attended with immense limitations. However, that perhaps is natural." "Is this all you wished to say to me?" Isabel asked, taking a candle that stood on one of the tables. "Are you satisfied? Am I sufficiently disappointed?" "I don't think that on the whole you're disappointed. You've had another opportunity to try to stupefy me." "It's not that. It's proved that Pansy can aim high." "Poor little Pansy!" said Isabel as she turned away with her candle.

Isabel's conversation with Osmond declares her intention not to help him in his quest to marry Pansy to Lord Warburton -- he accuses her then of taking a direct action against him. This is the beginning of an open confrontation with her husband that she has never before had, and which she had feared at the beginning of Chapter 45 would occur in reference to Ralph. It is a demonstration of a kind of psychological violence that people can do to each other by acting against one another's interests, or ignoring each other's desires. Osmond shows his own limited perspective when he refuses to acknowledge Pansy's own desires as even factoring into her life: he simply believes she should follow convention and try to ambitiously climb as high in society as possible through marriage. Isabel's response to Henrietta's suggestion that she simply leave Osmond implies that Isabel believes in a certain moral standard for her own behavior. Unlike being tied to conventionality, like Osmond's understanding of marriage, Isabel takes responsibility for her actions, believing that she freely made her choice to be with Osmond and that she ought not to hypocritically act in ways contradicting the oath she made. Robert Pippin has understood Isabel to be one of Henry James' best moral heroines, who is asking the question of how she can morally assert her own freedom in life - how she can act independently, taking responsibility for her own actions. She is faced with the modern problem of decaying social relations that are empty formal conventions with no real moral values. She is faced with a problem of meaning that is unstable because nobody shares common meanings. Gilbert Osmond for example sees marriage as a financial transaction, but Isabel marries for her own ideas. Her assertion to Henrietta that she must adhere to the consequences of her actions shows Isabel's commitment to keeping her actions consistent, even in the realization that they are isolating.

analysis

Madame Merle had not made her appearance at Palazzo Roccanera on the evening of that Thursday of which I have narrated some of the incidents, and Isabel, though she observed her absence, was not surprised by it. Things had passed between them which added no stimulus to sociability, and to appreciate which we must glance a little backward. It has been mentioned that Madame Merle returned from Naples shortly after Lord Warburton had left Rome, and that on her first meeting with Isabel (whom, to do her justice, she came immediately to see) her first utterance had been an enquiry as to the whereabouts of this nobleman, for whom she appeared to hold her dear friend accountable. "Please don't talk of him," said Isabel for answer; "we've heard so much of him of late." Madame Merle bent her head on one side a little, protestingly, and smiled at the left corner of her mouth. "You've heard, yes. But you must remember that I've not, in Naples. I hoped to find him here and to be able to congratulate Pansy." "You may congratulate Pansy still; but not on marrying Lord Warburton." "How you say that! Don't you know I had set my heart on it?" Madame Merle asked with a great deal of spirit, but still with the intonation of good-humour. Isabel was discomposed, but she was determined to be good-humoured too. "You shouldn't have gone to Naples then. You should have stayed here to watch the affair." "I had too much confidence in you. But do you think it's too late?" "You had better ask Pansy," said Isabel. "I shall ask her what you've said to her." These words seemed to justify the impulse of self-defence aroused on Isabel's part by her perceiving that her visitor's attitude was a critical one. Madame Merle, as we know, had been very discreet hitherto; she had never criticised; she had been markedly afraid of intermeddling. But apparently she had only reserved herself for this occasion, since she now had a dangerous quickness in her eye and an air of irritation which even her admirable ease was not able to transmute. She had suffered a disappointment which excited Isabel's surprise--our heroine having no knowledge of her zealous interest in Pansy's marriage; and she betrayed it in a manner which quickened Mrs. Osmond's alarm. More clearly than ever before Isabel heard a cold, mocking voice proceed from she knew not where, in the dim void that surrounded her, and declare that this bright, strong, definite, worldly woman, this incarnation of the practical, the personal, the immediate, was a powerful agent in her destiny. She was nearer to her than Isabel had yet discovered, and her nearness was not the charming accident she had so long supposed. The sense of accident indeed had died within her that day when she happened to be struck with the manner in which the wonderful lady and her own husband sat together in private. No definite suspicion had as yet taken its place; but it was enough to make her view this friend with a different eye, to have been led to reflect that there was more intention in her past behaviour than she had allowed for at the time. Ah yes, there had been intention, there had been intention, Isabel said to herself; and she seemed to wake from a long pernicious dream. What was it that brought home to her that Madame Merle's intention had not been good? Nothing but the mistrust which had lately taken body and which married itself now to the fruitful wonder produced by her visitor's challenge on behalf of poor Pansy. There was something in this challenge which had at the very outset excited an answering defiance; a nameless vitality which she could see to have been absent from her friend's professions of delicacy and caution. Madame Merle had been unwilling to interfere, certainly, but only so long as there was nothing to interfere with. It will perhaps seem to the reader that Isabel went fast in casting doubt, on mere suspicion, on a sincerity proved by several years of good offices. She moved quickly indeed, and with reason, for a strange truth was filtering into her soul. Madame Merle's interest was identical with Osmond's: that was enough. "I think Pansy will tell you nothing that will make you more angry," she said in answer to her companion's last remark. "I'm not in the least angry. I've only a great desire to retrieve the situation. Do you consider that Warburton has left us for ever?" "I can't tell you; I don't understand you. It's all over; please let it rest. Osmond has talked to me a great deal about it, and I've nothing more to say or to hear. I've no doubt," Isabel added, "that he'll be very happy to discuss the subject with you." "I know what he thinks; he came to see me last evening." "As soon as you had arrived? Then you know all about it and you needn't apply to me for information." "It isn't information I want. At bottom it's sympathy. I had set my heart on that marriage; the idea did what so few things do--it satisfied the imagination." "Your imagination, yes. But not that of the persons concerned." "You mean by that of course that I'm not concerned. Of course not directly. But when one's such an old friend one can't help having something at stake. You forget how long I've known Pansy. You mean, of course," Madame Merle added, "that YOU are one of the persons concerned." "No; that's the last thing I mean. I'm very weary of it all." Madame Merle hesitated a little. "Ah yes, your work's done." "Take care what you say," said Isabel very gravely. "Oh, I take care; never perhaps more than when it appears least. Your husband judges you severely." Isabel made for a moment no answer to this; she felt choked with bitterness. It was not the insolence of Madame Merle's informing her that Osmond had been taking her into his confidence as against his wife that struck her most; for she was not quick to believe that this was meant for insolence. Madame Merle was very rarely insolent, and only when it was exactly right. It was not right now, or at least it was not right yet. What touched Isabel like a drop of corrosive acid upon an open wound was the knowledge that Osmond dishonoured her in his words as well as in his thoughts. "Should you like to know how I judge HIM?" she asked at last. "No, because you'd never tell me. And it would be painful for me to know." There was a pause, and for the first time since she had known her Isabel thought Madame Merle disagreeable. She wished she would leave her. "Remember how attractive Pansy is, and don't despair," she said abruptly, with a desire that this should close their interview. But Madame Merle's expansive presence underwent no contraction. She only gathered her mantle about her and, with the movement, scattered upon the air a faint, agreeable fragrance. "I don't despair; I feel encouraged. And I didn't come to scold you; I came if possible to learn the truth. I know you'll tell it if I ask you. It's an immense blessing with you that one can count upon that. No, you won't believe what a comfort I take in it." "What truth do you speak of?" Isabel asked, wondering. "Just this: whether Lord Warburton changed his mind quite of his own movement or because you recommended it. To please himself I mean, or to please you. Think of the confidence I must still have in you, in spite of having lost a little of it," Madame Merle continued with a smile, "to ask such a question as that!" She sat looking at her friend, to judge the effect of her words, and then went on: "Now don't be heroic, don't be unreasonable, don't take offence. It seems to me I do you an honour in speaking so. I don't know another woman to whom I would do it. I haven't the least idea that any other woman would tell me the truth. And don't you see how well it is that your husband should know it? It's true that he doesn't appear to have had any tact whatever in trying to extract it; he has indulged in gratuitous suppositions. But that doesn't alter the fact that it would make a difference in his view of his daughter's prospects to know distinctly what really occurred. If Lord Warburton simply got tired of the poor child, that's one thing, and it's a pity. If he gave her up to please you it's another. That's a pity too, but in a different way. Then, in the latter case, you'd perhaps resign yourself to not being pleased--to simply seeing your step-daughter married. Let him off--let us have him!" Madame Merle had proceeded very deliberately, watching her companion and apparently thinking she could proceed safely. As she went on Isabel grew pale; she clasped her hands more tightly in her lap. It was not that her visitor had at last thought it the right time to be insolent; for this was not what was most apparent. It was a worse horror than that. "Who are you--what are you?" Isabel murmured. "What have you to do with my husband?" It was strange that for the moment she drew as near to him as if she had loved him. "Ah then, you take it heroically! I'm very sorry. Don't think, however, that I shall do so." "What have you to do with me?" Isabel went on. Madame Merle slowly got up, stroking her muff, but not removing her eyes from Isabel's face. "Everything!" she answered. Isabel sat there looking up at her, without rising; her face was almost a prayer to be enlightened. But the light of this woman's eyes seemed only a darkness. "Oh misery!" she murmured at last; and she fell back, covering her face with her hands. It had come over her like a high-surging wave that Mrs. Touchett was right. Madame Merle had married her. Before she uncovered her face again that lady had left the room. 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 dropped her secret sadness into the silence of lonely places, where its very modern quality detached itself and grew objective, so that as she sat in a sun-warmed angle on a winter's day, or stood in a mouldy church to which no one came, she could almost smile at it and think of its smallness. Small it was, in the large Roman record, and her haunting sense of the continuity of the human lot easily carried her from the less to the greater. She had become deeply, tenderly acquainted with Rome; it interfused and moderated her passion. But she had grown to think of it chiefly as the place where people had suffered. This was what came to her in the starved churches, where the marble columns, transferred from pagan ruins, seemed to offer her a companionship in endurance and the musty incense to be a compound of long-unanswered prayers. There was no gentler nor less consistent heretic than Isabel; the firmest of worshippers, gazing at dark altar-pictures or clustered candles, could not have felt more intimately the suggestiveness of these objects nor have been more liable at such moments to a spiritual visitation. Pansy, as we know, was almost always her companion, and of late the Countess Gemini, balancing a pink parasol, had lent brilliancy to their equipage; but she still occasionally found herself alone when it suited her mood and where it suited the place. On such occasions she had several resorts; the most accessible of which perhaps was a seat on the low parapet which edges the wide grassy space before the high, cold front of Saint John Lateran, whence you look across the Campagna at the far-trailing outline of the Alban Mount and at that mighty plain, between, which is still so full of all that has passed from it. After the departure of her cousin and his companions she roamed more than usual; she carried her sombre spirit from one familiar shrine to the other. Even when Pansy and the Countess were with her she felt the touch of a vanished world. The carriage, leaving the walls of Rome behind, rolled through narrow lanes where the wild honeysuckle had begun to tangle itself in the hedges, or waited for her in quiet places where the fields lay near, while she strolled further and further over the flower-freckled turf, or sat on a stone that had once had a use and gazed through the veil of her personal sadness at the splendid sadness of the scene--at the dense, warm light, the far gradations and soft confusions of colour, the motionless shepherds in lonely attitudes, the hills where the cloud-shadows had the lightness of a blush. On the afternoon I began with speaking of, she had taken a resolution not to think of Madame Merle; but the resolution proved vain, and this lady's image hovered constantly before her. She asked herself, with an almost childlike horror of the supposition, whether to this intimate friend of several years the great historical epithet of wicked were to be applied. She knew the idea only by the Bible and other literary works; to the best of her belief she had had no personal acquaintance with wickedness. She had desired a large acquaintance with human life, and in spite of her having flattered herself that she cultivated it with some success this elementary privilege had been denied her. Perhaps it was not wicked--in the historic sense--to be even deeply false; for that was what Madame Merle had been--deeply, deeply, deeply. Isabel's Aunt Lydia had made this discovery long before, and had mentioned it to her niece; but Isabel had flattered herself at this time that she had a much richer view of things, especially of the spontaneity of her own career and the nobleness of her own interpretations, than poor stiffly-reasoning Mrs. Touchett. Madame Merle had done what she wanted; she had brought about the union of her two friends; a reflection which could not fail to make it a matter of wonder that she should so much have desired such an event. There were people who had the match-making passion, like the votaries of art for art; but Madame Merle, great artist as she was, was scarcely one of these. She thought too ill of marriage, too ill even of life; she had desired that particular marriage but had not desired others. She had therefore had a conception of gain, and Isabel asked herself where she had found her profit. It took her naturally a long time to discover, and even then her discovery was imperfect. It came back to her that Madame Merle, though she had seemed to like her from their first meeting at Gardencourt, had been doubly affectionate after Mr. Touchett's death and after learning that her young friend had been subject to the good old man's charity. She had found her profit not in the gross device of borrowing money, but in the more refined idea of introducing one of her intimates to the young woman's fresh and ingenuous fortune. She had naturally chosen her closest intimate, and it was already vivid enough to Isabel that Gilbert occupied this position. She found herself confronted in this manner with the conviction that the man in the world whom she had supposed to be the least sordid had married her, like a vulgar adventurer, for her money. Strange to say, it had never before occurred to her; if she had thought a good deal of harm of Osmond she had not done him this particular injury. This was the worst she could think of, and she had been saying to herself that the worst was still to come. A man might marry a woman for her money perfectly well; the thing was often done. But at least he should let her know. She wondered whether, since he had wanted her money, her money would now satisfy him. Would he take her money and let her go. Ah, if Mr. Touchett's great charity would but help her to-day it would be blessed indeed! It was not slow to occur to her that if Madame Merle had wished to do Gilbert a service his recognition to her of the boon must have lost its warmth. What must be his feelings to-day in regard to his too zealous benefactress, and what expression must they have found on the part of such a master of irony? It is a singular, but a characteristic, fact that before Isabel returned from her silent drive she had broken its silence by the soft exclamation: "Poor, poor Madame Merle!" Her compassion would perhaps have been justified if on this same afternoon she had been concealed behind one of the valuable curtains of time-softened damask which dressed the interesting little salon of the lady to whom it referred; the carefully-arranged apartment to which we once paid a visit in company with the discreet Mr. Rosier. In that apartment, towards six o'clock, Gilbert Osmond was seated, and his hostess stood before him as Isabel had seen her stand on an occasion commemorated in this history with an emphasis appropriate not so much to its apparent as to its real importance. "I don't believe you're unhappy; I believe you like it," said Madame Merle. "Did I say I was unhappy?" Osmond asked with a face grave enough to suggest that he might have been. "No, but you don't say the contrary, as you ought in common gratitude." "Don't talk about gratitude," he returned dryly. "And don't aggravate me," he added in a moment. Madame Merle slowly seated herself, with her arms folded and her white hands arranged as a support to one of them and an ornament, as it were, to the other. She looked exquisitely calm but impressively sad. "On your side, don't try to frighten me. I wonder if you guess some of my thoughts." "I trouble about them no more than I can help. I've quite enough of my own." "That's because they're so delightful." Osmond rested his head against the back of his chair and looked at his companion with a cynical directness which seemed also partly an expression of fatigue. "You do aggravate me," he remarked in a moment. "I'm very tired." "Eh moi donc!" cried Madame Merle. "With you it's because you fatigue yourself. With me it's not my own fault." "When I fatigue myself it's for you. I've given you an interest. That's a great gift." "Do you call it an interest?" Osmond enquired with detachment. "Certainly, since it helps you to pass your time." "The time has never seemed longer to me than this winter." "You've never looked better; you've never been so agreeable, so brilliant." "Damn my brilliancy!" he thoughtfully murmured. "How little, after all, you know me!" "If I don't know you I know nothing," smiled Madame Merle. "You've the feeling of complete success." "No, I shall not have that till I've made you stop judging me." "I did that long ago. I speak from old knowledge. But you express yourself more too." Osmond just hung fire. "I wish you'd express yourself less!" "You wish to condemn me to silence? Remember that I've never been a chatterbox. At any rate there are three or four things I should like to say to you first. Your wife doesn't know what to do with herself," she went on with a change of tone. "Pardon me; she knows perfectly. She has a line sharply drawn. She means to carry out her ideas." "Her ideas to-day must be remarkable." "Certainly they are. She has more of them than ever." "She was unable to show me any this morning," said Madame Merle. "She seemed in a very simple, almost in a stupid, state of mind. She was completely bewildered." "You had better say at once that she was pathetic." "Ah no, I don't want to encourage you too much." He still had his head against the cushion behind him; the ankle of one foot rested on the other knee. So he sat for a while. "I should like to know what's the matter with you," he said at last. "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?" "It would make me feel as I felt before I knew you." "If I've dried your tears, that's something. But I've seen you shed them." "Oh, I believe you'll make me cry still. I mean make me howl like a wolf. I've a great hope, I've a great need, of that. I was vile this morning; I was horrid," she said. "If Isabel was in the stupid state of mind you mention she probably didn't perceive it," Osmond answered. "It was precisely my deviltry that stupefied her. I couldn't help it; I was full of something bad. Perhaps it was something good; I don't know. You've not only dried up my tears; you've dried up my soul." "It's not I then that am responsible for my wife's condition," Osmond said. "It's pleasant to think that I shall get the benefit of your influence upon her. Don't you know the soul is an immortal principle? How can it suffer alteration?" "I don't believe at all that it's an immortal principle. I believe it can perfectly be destroyed. That's what has happened to mine, which was a very good one to start with; and it's you I have to thank for it. You're VERY bad," she added with gravity in her emphasis. "Is this the way we're to end?" Osmond asked with the same studied coldness. "I don't know how we're to end. I wish I did--How do bad people end?--especially as to their COMMON crimes. You have made me as bad as yourself." "I don't understand you. You seem to me quite good enough," said Osmond, his conscious indifference giving an extreme effect to the words. Madame Merle's self-possession tended on the contrary to diminish, and she was nearer losing it than on any occasion on which we have had the pleasure of meeting her. The glow of her eye turners sombre; her smile betrayed a painful effort. "Good enough for anything that I've done with myself? I suppose that's what you mean." "Good enough to be always charming!" Osmond exclaimed, smiling too. "Oh God!" his companion murmured; and, sitting there in her ripe freshness, she had recourse to the same gesture she had provoked on Isabel's part in the morning: she bent her face and covered it with her hands. "Are you going to weep after all?" Osmond asked; and on her remaining motionless he went on: "Have I ever complained to you?" She dropped her hands quickly. "No, you've taken your revenge otherwise--you have taken it on HER." 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." "I'm rather curious to know what you call my triumph." "You've made your wife afraid of you." Osmond changed his position; he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and looking a while at a beautiful old Persian rug, at his feet. He had an air of refusing to accept any one's valuation of anything, even of time, and of preferring to abide by his own; a peculiarity which made him at moments an irritating person to converse with. "Isabel's not afraid of me, and it's not what I wish," he said at last. "To what do you want to provoke me when you say such things as that?" "I've thought over all the harm you can do me," Madame Merle answered. "Your wife was afraid of me this morning, but in me it was really you she feared." "You may have said things that were in very bad taste; I'm not responsible for that. I didn't see the use of your going to see her at all: you're capable of acting without her. I've not made you afraid of me that I can see," he went on; "how then should I have made her? You're at least as brave. I can't think where you've picked up such rubbish; one might suppose you knew me by this time." He got up as he spoke and walked to the chimney, where he stood a moment bending his eye, as if he had seen them for the first time, on the delicate specimens of rare porcelain with which it was covered. He took up a small cup and held it in his hand; then, still holding it and leaning his arm on the mantel, he pursued: "You always see too much in everything; you overdo it; you lose sight of the real. I'm much simpler than you think." "I think you're very simple." And Madame Merle kept her eye on her cup. "I've come to that with time. I judged you, as I say, of old; but it's only since your marriage that I've understood you. I've seen better what you have been to your wife than I ever saw what you were for me. Please be very careful of that precious object." "It already has a wee bit of a tiny crack," said Osmond dryly as he put it down. "If you didn't understand me before I married it was cruelly rash of you to put me into such a box. However, I took a fancy to my box myself; I thought it would be a comfortable fit. I asked very little; I only asked that she should like me." "That she should like you so 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!" "It's true that you never accused me of being a comfortable fit," Madame Merle went on. "My wife has declined--declined to do anything of the sort," said Osmond. "If you're determined to make a tragedy of that, the tragedy's hardly for her." "The tragedy's for me!" Madame Merle exclaimed, rising with a long low sigh but having a glance at the same time for the contents of her mantel-shelf. "It appears that I'm to be severely taught the disadvantages of a false position." "You express yourself like a sentence in a copybook. We must look for our comfort where we can find it. If my wife doesn't like me, at least my child does. I shall look for compensations in Pansy. Fortunately I haven't a fault to find with her." "Ah," she said softly, "if I had a child--!" Osmond waited, and then, with a little formal air, "The children of others may be a great interest!" he announced. "You're more like a copy-book than I. There's something after all that holds us together." "Is it the idea of the harm I may do you?" Osmond asked. "No; it's the idea of the good I may do for you. It's that," Madame Merle pursued, "that made me so jealous of Isabel. I want it to be MY work," she added, with her face, which had grown hard and bitter, relaxing to its habit of smoothness. Her friend took up his hat and his umbrella, and after giving the former article two or three strokes with his coat-cuff, "On the whole, I think," he said, "you had better leave it to me." After he had left her she went, the first thing, and lifted from the mantel-shelf 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.

Madame Merle returns to Rome and she asks Isabel what happened with Lord Warburton. She pretends to take the whole affair lightly, but Isabel notices that she takes a more zealous interest than she should in Pansy's marriage. Isabel suspects even more than Merle has had a hand in Isabel's own marriage. She no longer feels that Merle's proximity to her is a mere "accident" , but rather that it is intentionally plotted. She has no definite suspicion, but she still feels there had been some sort of intention on Merle's part. Merle lets Isabel know that her husband is disappointed in her. Isabel feels bitter upon hearing how Osmond has been speaking ill of his wife. Merle insists on knowing whether Lord Warburton left on his own or whether Isabel advised it. She thinks it would help Osmond know what his daughter's prospects are if he knew what had occurred. Isabel turns pale. She asks Merle: "Who are you--what are you. What have you to do with my husband. What have you to do with me. Merle responds: "Everything. The truth came over Isabel like a "high-surging wave". Merle had been responsible for her marriage. Isabel goes for a drive alone that afternoon. The image of Madame Merle hovered before her. She wonders if the word "wicked" could be applied to her friend. She realizes that Merle has been deeply false to her. Isabel still wonders why Merle would want to bring about the event of her marriage so much that she should behave so badly. She thinks to herself that it must have something to do with money; Merle had married her to an intimate companion who might give Merle some money. She wonders if Gilbert had only wanted her money, would he let her go if she gave him all of it. She feels sorry for Merle, though, because she thinks she must not have gotten the money she had wanted. The narrator then leads the reader to a scene simultaneously occurring between Gilbert and Merle. Merle thinks Gilbert is ungrateful for what she has given him. Osmond is annoyed with her and asks what is wrong with her. She declares that she would give anything to be able to weep, but that she cannot do so anymore, since she has met Mr. Osmond. Merle recognizes that she was horrible to Isabel and she claims Gilbert has dried up her soul. Merle claims that Osmond has taken out his revenge upon Isabel, making his wife afraid of him and treating her badly. Osmond claims that she loses sight of the real and that he is in fact very simple. He asks only that his wife adore him. Merle says that she herself never adored him, and Osmond points out that she pretended to. Merle mourns the fact that she is being taught a lesson of having represented herself falsely, and Osmond critiques her for sounding like a "sentence in a copy book"

summary

As the Countess Gemini was not acquainted with the ancient monuments Isabel occasionally offered to introduce her to these interesting relics and to give their afternoon drive an antiquarian aim. The Countess, who professed to think her sister-in-law a prodigy of learning, never made an objection, and gazed at masses of Roman brickwork as patiently as if they had been mounds of modern drapery. She had not the historic sense, though she had in some directions the anecdotic, and as regards herself the apologetic, but she was so delighted to be in Rome that she only desired to float with the current. She would gladly have passed an hour every day in the damp darkness of the Baths of Titus if it had been a condition of her remaining at Palazzo Roccanera. Isabel, however, was not a severe cicerone; she used to visit the ruins chiefly because they offered an excuse for talking about other matters than the love affairs of the ladies of Florence, as to which her companion was never weary of offering information. It must be added that during these visits the Countess forbade herself every form of active research; her preference was to sit in the carriage and exclaim that everything was most interesting. It was in this manner that she had hitherto examined the Coliseum, to the infinite regret of her niece, who--with all the respect that she owed her--could not see why she should not descend from the vehicle and enter the building. Pansy had so little chance to ramble that her view of the case was not wholly disinterested; it may be divined that she had a secret hope that, once inside, her parents' guest might be induced to climb to the upper tiers. There came a day when the Countess announced her willingness to undertake this feat--a mild afternoon in March when the windy month expressed itself in occasional puffs of spring. The three ladies went into the Coliseum together, but Isabel left her companions to wander over the place. She had often ascended to those desolate ledges from which the Roman crowd used to bellow applause and where now the wild flowers (when they are allowed) bloom in the deep crevices; and to-day she felt weary and disposed to sit in the despoiled arena. It made an intermission too, for the Countess often asked more from one's attention than she gave in return; and Isabel believed that when she was alone with her niece she let the dust gather for a moment on the ancient scandals of the Arnide. She so remained below therefore, while Pansy guided her undiscriminating aunt to the steep brick staircase at the foot of which the custodian unlocks the tall wooden gate. The great enclosure was half in shadow; the western sun brought out the pale red tone of the great blocks of travertine--the latent colour that is the only living element in the immense ruin. Here and there wandered a peasant or a tourist, looking up at the far sky-line where, in the clear stillness, a multitude of swallows kept circling and plunging. Isabel presently became aware that one of the other visitors, planted in the middle of the arena, had turned his attention to her own person and was looking at her with a certain little poise of the head which she had some weeks before perceived to be characteristic of baffled but indestructible purpose. Such an attitude, to-day, could belong only to Mr. Edward Rosier; and this gentleman proved in fact to have been considering the question of speaking to her. When he had assured himself that she was unaccompanied he drew near, remarking that though she would not answer his letters she would perhaps not wholly close her ears to his spoken eloquence. She replied that her stepdaughter was close at hand and that she could only give him five minutes; whereupon he took out his watch and sat down upon a broken block. "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 Hotel Drouot," he went on. "The sale took place three days ago, and they've telegraphed me the result. It's magnificent." "I'm glad to hear it; but I wish you had kept your pretty things." "I have the money instead--fifty thousand dollars. Will Mr. Osmond think me rich enough now?" "Is it for that you did it?" Isabel asked gently. "For what else in the world could it be? That's the only thing I think of. I went to Paris and made my arrangements. I couldn't stop for the sale; I couldn't have seen them going off; I think it would have killed me. But I put them into good hands, and they brought high prices. I should tell you I have kept my enamels. Now I have the money in my pocket, and he can't say I'm poor!" the young man exclaimed defiantly. "He'll say now that you're not wise," said Isabel, as if Gilbert Osmond had never said this before. Rosier gave her a sharp look. "Do you mean that without my bibelots I'm nothing? Do you mean they were the best thing about me? That's what they told me in Paris; oh they were very frank about it. But they hadn't seen HER!" "My dear friend, you deserve to succeed," said Isabel very kindly. "You say that so sadly that it's the same as if you said I shouldn't." And he questioned her eyes with the clear trepidation of his own. He had the air of a man who knows he has been the talk of Paris for a week and is full half a head taller in consequence, but who also has a painful suspicion that in spite of this increase of stature one or two persons still have the perversity to think him diminutive. "I know what happened here while I was away," he went on; "What does Mr. Osmond expect after she has refused Lord Warburton?" Isabel debated. "That she'll marry another nobleman." "What other nobleman?" "One that he'll pick out." Rosier slowly got up, putting his watch into his waistcoat-pocket. "You're laughing at some one, but this time I don't think it's at me." "I didn't mean to laugh," said Isabel. "I laugh very seldom. Now you had better go away." "I feel very safe!" Rosier declared without moving. This might be; but it evidently made him feel more so to make the announcement in rather a loud voice, balancing himself a little complacently on his toes and looking all round the Coliseum as if it were filled with an audience. Suddenly Isabel saw him change colour; there was more of an audience than he had suspected. She turned and perceived that her two companions had returned from their excursion. "You must really go away," she said quickly. "Ah, my dear lady, pity me!" Edward Rosier murmured in a voice strangely at variance with the announcement I have just quoted. And then he added eagerly, like a man who in the midst of his misery is seized by a happy thought: "Is that lady the Countess Gemini? I've a great desire to be presented to her." Isabel looked at him a moment. "She has no influence with her brother." "Ah, what a monster you make him out!" And Rosier faced the Countess, who advanced, in front of Pansy, with an animation partly due perhaps to the fact that she perceived her sister-in-law to be engaged in conversation with a very pretty young man. "I'm glad you've kept your enamels!" Isabel called as she left him. She went straight to Pansy, who, on seeing Edward Rosier, had stopped short, with lowered eyes. "We'll go back to the carriage," she said gently. "Yes, it's getting late," Pansy returned more gently still. And she went on without a murmur, without faltering or glancing back. Isabel, however, allowing herself this last liberty, saw that a meeting had immediately taken place between the Countess and Mr. Rosier. He had removed his hat and was bowing and smiling; he had evidently introduced himself, while the Countess's expressive back displayed to Isabel's eye a gracious inclination. These facts, none the less, were presently lost to sight, for Isabel and Pansy took their places again in the carriage. Pansy, who faced her stepmother, at first kept her eyes fixed on her lap; then she raised them and rested them on Isabel's. There shone out of each of them a little melancholy ray--a spark of timid passion which touched Isabel to the heart. At the same time a wave of envy passed over her soul, as she compared the tremulous longing, the definite ideal of the child with her own dry despair. "Poor little Pansy!" she affectionately said. "Oh never mind!" Pansy answered in the tone of eager apology. And then there was a silence; the Countess was a long time coming. "Did you show your aunt everything, and did she enjoy it?" Isabel asked at last. "Yes, I showed her everything. I think she was very much pleased." "And you're not tired, I hope." "Oh no, thank you, I'm not tired." The Countess still remained behind, so that Isabel requested the footman to go into the Coliseum and tell her they were waiting. He presently returned with the announcement that the Signora Contessa begged them not to wait--she would come home in a cab! About a week after this lady's quick sympathies had enlisted themselves with Mr. Rosier, Isabel, going rather late to dress for dinner, found Pansy sitting in her room. The girl seemed to have been awaiting her; she got up from her low chair. "Pardon my taking the liberty," she said in a small voice. "It will be the last--for some time." Her voice was strange, and her eyes, widely opened, had an excited, frightened look. "You're not going away!" Isabel exclaimed. "I'm going to the convent." "To the convent?" Pansy drew nearer, till she was near enough to put her arms round Isabel and rest her head on her shoulder. She stood this way a moment, perfectly still; but her companion could feel her tremble. The quiver of her little body expressed everything she was unable to say. Isabel nevertheless pressed her. "Why are you going to the convent?" "Because papa thinks it best. He says a young girl's better, every now and then, for making a little retreat. He says the world, always the world, is very bad for a young girl. This is just a chance for a little seclusion--a little reflexion." Pansy spoke in short detached sentences, as if she could scarce trust herself; and then she added with a triumph of self-control: "I think papa's right; I've been so much in the world this winter." Her announcement had a strange effect on Isabel; it seemed to carry a larger meaning than the girl herself knew. "When was this decided?" she asked. "I've heard nothing of it." "Papa told me half an hour ago; he thought it better it shouldn't be too much talked about in advance. Madame Catherine's to come for me at a quarter past seven, and I'm only to take two frocks. It's only for a few weeks; I'm sure it will be very good. I shall find all those ladies who used to be so kind to me, and I shall see the little girls who are being educated. I'm very fond of little girls," said Pansy with an effect of diminutive grandeur. "And I'm also very fond of Mother Catherine. I shall be very quiet and think a great deal." Isabel listened to her, holding her breath; she was almost awe-struck. "Think of ME sometimes." "Ah, come and see me soon!" cried Pansy; and the cry was very different from the heroic remarks of which she had just delivered herself. Isabel could say nothing more; she understood nothing; she only felt how little she yet knew her husband. Her answer to his daughter was a long, tender kiss. Half an hour later she learned from her maid that Madame Catherine had arrived in a cab and had departed again with the signorina. On going to the drawing-room before dinner she found the Countess Gemini alone, and this lady characterised the incident by exclaiming, with a wonderful toss of the head, "En voila, ma chere, une pose!" But if it was an affectation she was at a loss to see what her husband affected. She could only dimly perceive that he had more traditions than she supposed. It had become her habit to be so careful as to what she said to him that, strange as it may appear, she hesitated, for several minutes after he had come in, to allude to his daughter's sudden departure: she spoke of it only after they were seated at table. But she had forbidden herself ever to ask Osmond a question. All she could do was to make a declaration, and there was one that came very naturally. "I shall miss Pansy very much." He looked a while, with his head inclined a little, at the basket of flowers in the middle of the table. "Ah yes," he said at last, "I had thought of that. You must go and see her, you know; but not too often. I dare say you wonder why I sent her to the good sisters; but I doubt if I can make you understand. It doesn't matter; don't trouble yourself about it. That's why I had not spoken of it. I didn't believe you would enter into it. But I've always had the idea; I've always thought it a part of the education of one's daughter. One's daughter should be fresh and fair; she should be innocent and gentle. With the manners of the present time she is liable to become so dusty and crumpled. Pansy's a little dusty, a little dishevelled; she has knocked about too much. This bustling, pushing rabble that calls itself society--one should take her out of it occasionally. Convents are very quiet, very convenient, very salutary. I like to think of her there, in the old garden, under the arcade, among those tranquil virtuous women. Many of them are gentlewomen born; several of them are noble. She will have her books and her drawing, she will have her piano. I've made the most liberal arrangements. There is to be nothing ascetic; there's just to be a certain little sense of sequestration. She'll have time to think, and there's something I want her to think about." Osmond spoke deliberately, reasonably, still with his head on one side, as if he were looking at the basket of flowers. His tone, however, was that of a man not so much offering an explanation as putting a thing into words--almost into pictures--to see, himself, how it would look. He considered a while the picture he had evoked and seemed greatly pleased with it. And then he went on: "The Catholics are very wise after all. The convent is a great institution; we can't do without it; it corresponds to an essential need in families, in society. It's a school of good manners; it's a school of repose. Oh, I don't want to detach my daughter from the world," he added; "I don't want to make her fix her thoughts on any other. This one's very well, as SHE should take it, and she may think of it as much as she likes. Only she must think of it in the right way." Isabel gave an extreme attention to this little sketch; she found it indeed intensely interesting. It seemed to show her how far her husband's desire to be effective was capable of going--to the point of playing theoretic tricks on the delicate organism of his daughter. She could not understand his purpose, no--not wholly; but she understood it better than he supposed or desired, inasmuch as she was convinced that the whole proceeding was an elaborate mystification, addressed to herself and destined to act upon her imagination. He had wanted to do something sudden and arbitrary, something unexpected and refined; to mark the difference between his sympathies and her own, and show that if he regarded his daughter as a precious work of art it was natural he should be more and more careful about the finishing touches. If he wished to be effective he had succeeded; the incident struck a chill into Isabel's heart. Pansy had known the convent in her childhood and had found a happy home there; she was fond of the good sisters, who were very fond of her, and there was therefore for the moment no definite hardship in her lot. But all the same the girl had taken fright; the impression her father desired to make would evidently be sharp enough. The old Protestant tradition had never faded from Isabel's imagination, and as her thoughts attached themselves to this striking example of her husband's genius--she sat looking, like him, at the basket of flowers--poor little Pansy became the heroine of a tragedy. Osmond wished it to be known that he shrank from nothing, and his wife found it hard to pretend to eat her dinner. There was a certain relief presently, in hearing the high, strained voice of her sister-in-law. The Countess too, apparently, had been thinking the thing out, but had arrived at a different conclusion from Isabel. "It's very absurd, my dear Osmond," she said, "to invent so many pretty reasons for poor Pansy's banishment. Why don't you say at once that you want to get her out of my way? Haven't you discovered that I think very well of Mr. Rosier? I do indeed; he seems to me simpaticissimo. He has made me believe in true love; I never did before! Of course you've made up your mind that with those convictions I'm dreadful company for Pansy." Osmond took a sip of a glass of wine; he looked perfectly good-humoured. "My dear Amy," he answered, smiling as if he were uttering a piece of gallantry, "I don't know anything about your convictions, but if I suspected that they interfere with mine it would be much simpler to banish YOU."

The Countess Gemini is visiting Isabel at the opening of this chapter. Pansy, Isabel and the Countess climb the Coliseum stairs together. Isabel notices, as Pansy and Countess ascend, that Edward Rosier is in the Coliseum as well, and he is watching them. He comes over to Isabel and tells her that he has sold all of his bibelots. He has done so that he will have money instead, enough for Mr. Osmond to think he is rich. Isabel tells him that Mr. Osmond will think him unwise now. Pansy and the Countess approach them, and Edward quickly leaves. On the way home, Pansy shoots Isabel a look of melancholy. Isabel feels sorry for Pansy, but also envious for her timid passion. The Countess and Edward go off together. Later, it seems that the Countess has sided with Edward. The next week, Pansy informs Isabel that her father is sending her back to the convent. Pansy says it will give her time to reflect. She will be very quiet and think a great deal. Isabel promises to visit her. That evening, Isabel tells Osmond that she will miss Pansy very much. He says that he is sending Pansy away because she is "dusty" and "disheveled" from being out in the world too much. The narrator tells us though that his explanation is not so much a real explanation as it is an attempt to put his idea into words, so that he may see how it might look. He declares that he wants Pansy to look at the world in the right way. Isabel finds Osmond's "sketch" very interesting. She feels as if it is being presented to her so as to mystify her, to make her imagination work. The Countess Gemini interrupts Osmond to say that he ought to say he is just banishing Pansy because of Mr. Rosier. Osmond replies that it would be easier to banish the Countess herself

summary

As the Countess Gemini was not acquainted with the ancient monuments Isabel occasionally offered to introduce her to these interesting relics and to give their afternoon drive an antiquarian aim. The Countess, who professed to think her sister-in-law a prodigy of learning, never made an objection, and gazed at masses of Roman brickwork as patiently as if they had been mounds of modern drapery. She had not the historic sense, though she had in some directions the anecdotic, and as regards herself the apologetic, but she was so delighted to be in Rome that she only desired to float with the current. She would gladly have passed an hour every day in the damp darkness of the Baths of Titus if it had been a condition of her remaining at Palazzo Roccanera. Isabel, however, was not a severe cicerone; she used to visit the ruins chiefly because they offered an excuse for talking about other matters than the love affairs of the ladies of Florence, as to which her companion was never weary of offering information. It must be added that during these visits the Countess forbade herself every form of active research; her preference was to sit in the carriage and exclaim that everything was most interesting. It was in this manner that she had hitherto examined the Coliseum, to the infinite regret of her niece, who--with all the respect that she owed her--could not see why she should not descend from the vehicle and enter the building. Pansy had so little chance to ramble that her view of the case was not wholly disinterested; it may be divined that she had a secret hope that, once inside, her parents' guest might be induced to climb to the upper tiers. There came a day when the Countess announced her willingness to undertake this feat--a mild afternoon in March when the windy month expressed itself in occasional puffs of spring. The three ladies went into the Coliseum together, but Isabel left her companions to wander over the place. She had often ascended to those desolate ledges from which the Roman crowd used to bellow applause and where now the wild flowers (when they are allowed) bloom in the deep crevices; and to-day she felt weary and disposed to sit in the despoiled arena. It made an intermission too, for the Countess often asked more from one's attention than she gave in return; and Isabel believed that when she was alone with her niece she let the dust gather for a moment on the ancient scandals of the Arnide. She so remained below therefore, while Pansy guided her undiscriminating aunt to the steep brick staircase at the foot of which the custodian unlocks the tall wooden gate. The great enclosure was half in shadow; the western sun brought out the pale red tone of the great blocks of travertine--the latent colour that is the only living element in the immense ruin. Here and there wandered a peasant or a tourist, looking up at the far sky-line where, in the clear stillness, a multitude of swallows kept circling and plunging. Isabel presently became aware that one of the other visitors, planted in the middle of the arena, had turned his attention to her own person and was looking at her with a certain little poise of the head which she had some weeks before perceived to be characteristic of baffled but indestructible purpose. Such an attitude, to-day, could belong only to Mr. Edward Rosier; and this gentleman proved in fact to have been considering the question of speaking to her. When he had assured himself that she was unaccompanied he drew near, remarking that though she would not answer his letters she would perhaps not wholly close her ears to his spoken eloquence. She replied that her stepdaughter was close at hand and that she could only give him five minutes; whereupon he took out his watch and sat down upon a broken block. "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 Hotel Drouot," he went on. "The sale took place three days ago, and they've telegraphed me the result. It's magnificent." "I'm glad to hear it; but I wish you had kept your pretty things." "I have the money instead--fifty thousand dollars. Will Mr. Osmond think me rich enough now?" "Is it for that you did it?" Isabel asked gently. "For what else in the world could it be? That's the only thing I think of. I went to Paris and made my arrangements. I couldn't stop for the sale; I couldn't have seen them going off; I think it would have killed me. But I put them into good hands, and they brought high prices. I should tell you I have kept my enamels. Now I have the money in my pocket, and he can't say I'm poor!" the young man exclaimed defiantly. "He'll say now that you're not wise," said Isabel, as if Gilbert Osmond had never said this before. Rosier gave her a sharp look. "Do you mean that without my bibelots I'm nothing? Do you mean they were the best thing about me? That's what they told me in Paris; oh they were very frank about it. But they hadn't seen HER!" "My dear friend, you deserve to succeed," said Isabel very kindly. "You say that so sadly that it's the same as if you said I shouldn't." And he questioned her eyes with the clear trepidation of his own. He had the air of a man who knows he has been the talk of Paris for a week and is full half a head taller in consequence, but who also has a painful suspicion that in spite of this increase of stature one or two persons still have the perversity to think him diminutive. "I know what happened here while I was away," he went on; "What does Mr. Osmond expect after she has refused Lord Warburton?" Isabel debated. "That she'll marry another nobleman." "What other nobleman?" "One that he'll pick out." Rosier slowly got up, putting his watch into his waistcoat-pocket. "You're laughing at some one, but this time I don't think it's at me." "I didn't mean to laugh," said Isabel. "I laugh very seldom. Now you had better go away." "I feel very safe!" Rosier declared without moving. This might be; but it evidently made him feel more so to make the announcement in rather a loud voice, balancing himself a little complacently on his toes and looking all round the Coliseum as if it were filled with an audience. Suddenly Isabel saw him change colour; there was more of an audience than he had suspected. She turned and perceived that her two companions had returned from their excursion. "You must really go away," she said quickly. "Ah, my dear lady, pity me!" Edward Rosier murmured in a voice strangely at variance with the announcement I have just quoted. And then he added eagerly, like a man who in the midst of his misery is seized by a happy thought: "Is that lady the Countess Gemini? I've a great desire to be presented to her." Isabel looked at him a moment. "She has no influence with her brother." "Ah, what a monster you make him out!" And Rosier faced the Countess, who advanced, in front of Pansy, with an animation partly due perhaps to the fact that she perceived her sister-in-law to be engaged in conversation with a very pretty young man. "I'm glad you've kept your enamels!" Isabel called as she left him. She went straight to Pansy, who, on seeing Edward Rosier, had stopped short, with lowered eyes. "We'll go back to the carriage," she said gently. "Yes, it's getting late," Pansy returned more gently still. And she went on without a murmur, without faltering or glancing back. Isabel, however, allowing herself this last liberty, saw that a meeting had immediately taken place between the Countess and Mr. Rosier. He had removed his hat and was bowing and smiling; he had evidently introduced himself, while the Countess's expressive back displayed to Isabel's eye a gracious inclination. These facts, none the less, were presently lost to sight, for Isabel and Pansy took their places again in the carriage. Pansy, who faced her stepmother, at first kept her eyes fixed on her lap; then she raised them and rested them on Isabel's. There shone out of each of them a little melancholy ray--a spark of timid passion which touched Isabel to the heart. At the same time a wave of envy passed over her soul, as she compared the tremulous longing, the definite ideal of the child with her own dry despair. "Poor little Pansy!" she affectionately said. "Oh never mind!" Pansy answered in the tone of eager apology. And then there was a silence; the Countess was a long time coming. "Did you show your aunt everything, and did she enjoy it?" Isabel asked at last. "Yes, I showed her everything. I think she was very much pleased." "And you're not tired, I hope." "Oh no, thank you, I'm not tired." The Countess still remained behind, so that Isabel requested the footman to go into the Coliseum and tell her they were waiting. He presently returned with the announcement that the Signora Contessa begged them not to wait--she would come home in a cab! About a week after this lady's quick sympathies had enlisted themselves with Mr. Rosier, Isabel, going rather late to dress for dinner, found Pansy sitting in her room. The girl seemed to have been awaiting her; she got up from her low chair. "Pardon my taking the liberty," she said in a small voice. "It will be the last--for some time." Her voice was strange, and her eyes, widely opened, had an excited, frightened look. "You're not going away!" Isabel exclaimed. "I'm going to the convent." "To the convent?" Pansy drew nearer, till she was near enough to put her arms round Isabel and rest her head on her shoulder. She stood this way a moment, perfectly still; but her companion could feel her tremble. The quiver of her little body expressed everything she was unable to say. Isabel nevertheless pressed her. "Why are you going to the convent?" "Because papa thinks it best. He says a young girl's better, every now and then, for making a little retreat. He says the world, always the world, is very bad for a young girl. This is just a chance for a little seclusion--a little reflexion." Pansy spoke in short detached sentences, as if she could scarce trust herself; and then she added with a triumph of self-control: "I think papa's right; I've been so much in the world this winter." Her announcement had a strange effect on Isabel; it seemed to carry a larger meaning than the girl herself knew. "When was this decided?" she asked. "I've heard nothing of it." "Papa told me half an hour ago; he thought it better it shouldn't be too much talked about in advance. Madame Catherine's to come for me at a quarter past seven, and I'm only to take two frocks. It's only for a few weeks; I'm sure it will be very good. I shall find all those ladies who used to be so kind to me, and I shall see the little girls who are being educated. I'm very fond of little girls," said Pansy with an effect of diminutive grandeur. "And I'm also very fond of Mother Catherine. I shall be very quiet and think a great deal." Isabel listened to her, holding her breath; she was almost awe-struck. "Think of ME sometimes." "Ah, come and see me soon!" cried Pansy; and the cry was very different from the heroic remarks of which she had just delivered herself. Isabel could say nothing more; she understood nothing; she only felt how little she yet knew her husband. Her answer to his daughter was a long, tender kiss. Half an hour later she learned from her maid that Madame Catherine had arrived in a cab and had departed again with the signorina. On going to the drawing-room before dinner she found the Countess Gemini alone, and this lady characterised the incident by exclaiming, with a wonderful toss of the head, "En voila, ma chere, une pose!" But if it was an affectation she was at a loss to see what her husband affected. She could only dimly perceive that he had more traditions than she supposed. It had become her habit to be so careful as to what she said to him that, strange as it may appear, she hesitated, for several minutes after he had come in, to allude to his daughter's sudden departure: she spoke of it only after they were seated at table. But she had forbidden herself ever to ask Osmond a question. All she could do was to make a declaration, and there was one that came very naturally. "I shall miss Pansy very much." He looked a while, with his head inclined a little, at the basket of flowers in the middle of the table. "Ah yes," he said at last, "I had thought of that. You must go and see her, you know; but not too often. I dare say you wonder why I sent her to the good sisters; but I doubt if I can make you understand. It doesn't matter; don't trouble yourself about it. That's why I had not spoken of it. I didn't believe you would enter into it. But I've always had the idea; I've always thought it a part of the education of one's daughter. One's daughter should be fresh and fair; she should be innocent and gentle. With the manners of the present time she is liable to become so dusty and crumpled. Pansy's a little dusty, a little dishevelled; she has knocked about too much. This bustling, pushing rabble that calls itself society--one should take her out of it occasionally. Convents are very quiet, very convenient, very salutary. I like to think of her there, in the old garden, under the arcade, among those tranquil virtuous women. Many of them are gentlewomen born; several of them are noble. She will have her books and her drawing, she will have her piano. I've made the most liberal arrangements. There is to be nothing ascetic; there's just to be a certain little sense of sequestration. She'll have time to think, and there's something I want her to think about." Osmond spoke deliberately, reasonably, still with his head on one side, as if he were looking at the basket of flowers. His tone, however, was that of a man not so much offering an explanation as putting a thing into words--almost into pictures--to see, himself, how it would look. He considered a while the picture he had evoked and seemed greatly pleased with it. And then he went on: "The Catholics are very wise after all. The convent is a great institution; we can't do without it; it corresponds to an essential need in families, in society. It's a school of good manners; it's a school of repose. Oh, I don't want to detach my daughter from the world," he added; "I don't want to make her fix her thoughts on any other. This one's very well, as SHE should take it, and she may think of it as much as she likes. Only she must think of it in the right way." Isabel gave an extreme attention to this little sketch; she found it indeed intensely interesting. It seemed to show her how far her husband's desire to be effective was capable of going--to the point of playing theoretic tricks on the delicate organism of his daughter. She could not understand his purpose, no--not wholly; but she understood it better than he supposed or desired, inasmuch as she was convinced that the whole proceeding was an elaborate mystification, addressed to herself and destined to act upon her imagination. He had wanted to do something sudden and arbitrary, something unexpected and refined; to mark the difference between his sympathies and her own, and show that if he regarded his daughter as a precious work of art it was natural he should be more and more careful about the finishing touches. If he wished to be effective he had succeeded; the incident struck a chill into Isabel's heart. Pansy had known the convent in her childhood and had found a happy home there; she was fond of the good sisters, who were very fond of her, and there was therefore for the moment no definite hardship in her lot. But all the same the girl had taken fright; the impression her father desired to make would evidently be sharp enough. The old Protestant tradition had never faded from Isabel's imagination, and as her thoughts attached themselves to this striking example of her husband's genius--she sat looking, like him, at the basket of flowers--poor little Pansy became the heroine of a tragedy. Osmond wished it to be known that he shrank from nothing, and his wife found it hard to pretend to eat her dinner. There was a certain relief presently, in hearing the high, strained voice of her sister-in-law. The Countess too, apparently, had been thinking the thing out, but had arrived at a different conclusion from Isabel. "It's very absurd, my dear Osmond," she said, "to invent so many pretty reasons for poor Pansy's banishment. Why don't you say at once that you want to get her out of my way? Haven't you discovered that I think very well of Mr. Rosier? I do indeed; he seems to me simpaticissimo. He has made me believe in true love; I never did before! Of course you've made up your mind that with those convictions I'm dreadful company for Pansy." Osmond took a sip of a glass of wine; he looked perfectly good-humoured. "My dear Amy," he answered, smiling as if he were uttering a piece of gallantry, "I don't know anything about your convictions, but if I suspected that they interfere with mine it would be much simpler to banish YOU."

Osmond's decision to send Pansy away is his attempt to exercise more control over Pansy and her understanding of the world. Pansy, ever the obedient daughter, does not take it bitterly and resolves herself to do what her father tells her. Osmond though wants to present his idea as if it is for his daughter's own interest, and he creates a "portrait." This is an extended metaphor that is employed by the narrator to describe Osmond's actions. This metaphor then is presented to Isabel, who realizes the aesthetic illusion this sketch is supposed to create. The metaphor then serves to allow us to view these people's social relations and their attempts to manipulate the truth as similar to the way we approach a work of art. The reader of this ClassicNote will remember that aesthetics is the philosophical inquiry into what makes something beautiful, and what makes something into a work of art. Henry James, through this metaphor, is showing how Osmond can use aesthetic means to manipulate an ugly truth, to make an ugly truth appear better. Isabel, who once was convinced by Osmond's good taste , now is suspicious of it. She knows that it is a trick designed to work on her imagination, to make her believe that values are there which are not actually there. Osmond is able to control Isabel by appealing to her sense of higher values -- values that she realizes he does not share, but which he can nevertheless use against her. She tries to point out his hypocrisy, but he is somehow maintains the upper hand. The Countess arrives to put one of the final pieces of the puzzle together for Isabel. The use of a minor character to tie up this loose end and give a concrete reality to a suspicion that is only shadowy in Isabel's mind is a technique that is common to James' novels. In his New York Edition Prefaces, he calls it the use of a 'ficelle': a character that helps advance the plot, economizing on the infinite possibilities of what might happen by being minor themselves and somewhat two-dimensional. When Isabel learns the truth, she shows her truly good nature by exercising her empathy for Madame Merle, who has so wickedly deceived her. She recognizes that not even Pansy likes Madame Merle - Pansy, Merle's very own daughter. Isabel has been successful exactly where Merle has not been: she has money, has received marriage proposals from prominent men, and she is often thought of as Pansy's guardian and stepmother.

analysis

There was a train for Turin and Paris that evening; and after the Countess had left her Isabel had a rapid and decisive conference with her maid, who was discreet, devoted and active. After this she thought (except of her journey) only of one thing. She must go and see Pansy; from her she couldn't turn away. She had not seen her yet, as Osmond had given her to understand that it was too soon to begin. She drove at five o'clock to a high floor in a narrow street in the quarter of the Piazza Navona, and was admitted by the portress of the convent, a genial and obsequious person. Isabel had been at this institution before; she had come with Pansy to see the sisters. She knew they were good women, and she saw that the large rooms were clean and cheerful and that the well-used garden had sun for winter and shade for spring. But she disliked the place, which affronted and almost frightened her; not for the world would she have spent a night there. It produced to-day more than before the impression of a well-appointed prison; for it was not possible to pretend Pansy was free to leave it. This innocent creature had been presented to her in a new and violent light, but the secondary effect of the revelation was to make her reach out a hand. The portress left her to wait in the parlour of the convent while she went to make it known that there was a visitor for the dear young lady. The parlour was a vast, cold apartment, with new-looking furniture; a large clean stove of white porcelain, unlighted, a collection of wax flowers under glass, and a series of engravings from religious pictures on the walls. On the other occasion Isabel had thought it less like Rome than like Philadelphia, but to-day she made no reflexions; the apartment only seemed to her very empty and very soundless. The portress returned at the end of some five minutes, ushering in another person. Isabel got up, expecting to see one of the ladies of the sisterhood, but to her extreme surprise found herself confronted with Madame Merle. The effect was strange, for Madame Merle was already so present to her vision that her appearance in the flesh was like suddenly, and rather awfully, seeing a painted picture move. Isabel had been thinking all day of her falsity, her audacity, her ability, her probable suffering; and these dark things seemed to flash with a sudden light as she entered the room. Her being there at all had the character of ugly evidence, of handwritings, of profaned relics, of grim things produced in court. It made Isabel feel faint; if it had been necessary to speak on the spot she would have been quite unable. But no such necessity was distinct to her; it seemed to her indeed that she had absolutely nothing to say to Madame Merle. In one's relations with this lady, however, there were never any absolute necessities; she had a manner which carried off not only her own deficiencies but those of other people. But she was different from usual; she came in slowly, behind the portress, and Isabel instantly perceived that she was not likely to depend upon her habitual resources. For her too the occasion was exceptional, and she had undertaken to treat it by the light of the moment. This gave her a peculiar gravity; she pretended not even to smile, and though Isabel saw that she was more than ever playing a part it seemed to her that on the whole the wonderful woman had never been so natural. She looked at her young friend from head to foot, but not harshly nor defiantly; with a cold gentleness rather, and an absence of any air of allusion to their last meeting. It was as if she had wished to mark a distinction. She had been irritated then, she was reconciled now. "You can leave us alone," she said to the portress; "in five minutes this lady will ring for you." And then she turned to Isabel, who, after noting what has just been mentioned, had ceased to notice and had let her eyes wander as far as the limits of the room would allow. She wished never to look at Madame Merle again. "You're surprised to find me here, and I'm afraid you're not pleased," this lady went on. "You don't see why I should have come; it's as if I had anticipated you. I confess I've been rather indiscreet--I ought to have asked your permission." There was none of the oblique movement of irony in this; it was said simply and mildly; but Isabel, far afloat on a sea of wonder and pain, could not have told herself with what intention it was uttered. "But I've not been sitting long," Madame Merle continued; "that is I've not been long with Pansy. I came to see her because it occurred to me this afternoon that she must be rather lonely and perhaps even a little miserable. It may be good for a small girl; I know so little about small girls; I can't tell. At any rate it's a little dismal. Therefore I came--on the chance. I knew of course that you'd come, and her father as well; still, I had not been told other visitors were forbidden. The good woman--what's her name? Madame Catherine--made no objection whatever. I stayed twenty minutes with Pansy; she has a charming little room, not in the least conventual, with a piano and flowers. She has arranged it delightfully; she has so much taste. Of course it's all none of my business, but I feel happier since I've seen her. She may even have a maid if she likes; but of course she has no occasion to dress. She wears a little black frock; she looks so charming. I went afterwards to see Mother Catherine, who has a very good room too; I assure you I don't find the poor sisters at all monastic. Mother Catherine has a most coquettish little toilet-table, with something that looked uncommonly like a bottle of eau-de-Cologne. She speaks delightfully of Pansy; says it's a great happiness for them to have her. She's a little saint of heaven and a model to the oldest of them. Just as I was leaving Madame Catherine the portress came to say to her that there was a lady for the signorina. Of course I knew it must be you, and I asked her to let me go and receive you in her place. She demurred greatly--I must tell you that--and said it was her duty to notify the Mother Superior; it was of such high importance that you should be treated with respect. I requested her to let the Mother Superior alone and asked her how she supposed I would treat you!" So Madame Merle went on, with much of the brilliancy of a woman who had long been a mistress of the art of conversation. But there were phases and gradations in her speech, not one of which was lost upon Isabel's ear, though her eyes were absent from her companion's face. She had not proceeded far before Isabel noted a sudden break in her voice, a lapse in her continuity, which was in itself a complete drama. This subtle modulation marked a momentous discovery--the perception of an entirely new attitude on the part of her listener. Madame Merle had guessed in the space of an instant that everything was at end between them, and in the space of another instant she had guessed the reason why. The person who stood there was not the same one she had seen hitherto, but was a very different person--a person who knew her secret. This discovery was tremendous, and from the moment she made it the most accomplished of women faltered and lost her courage. But only for that moment. Then the conscious stream of her perfect manner gathered itself again and flowed on as smoothly as might be to the end. But it was only because she had the end in view that she was able to proceed. She had been touched with a point that made her quiver, and she needed all the alertness of her will to repress her agitation. Her only safety was in her not betraying herself. She resisted this, but the startled quality of her voice refused to improve--she couldn't help it--while she heard herself say she hardly knew what. The tide of her confidence ebbed, and she was able only just to glide into port, faintly grazing the bottom. Isabel saw it all as distinctly as if it had been reflected in a large clear glass. It might have been a great moment for her, for it might have been a moment of triumph. That Madame Merle had lost her pluck and saw before her the phantom of exposure--this in itself was a revenge, this in itself was almost the promise of a brighter day. And for a moment during which she stood apparently looking out of the window, with her back half-turned, Isabel enjoyed that knowledge. On the other side of the window lay the garden of the convent; but this is not what she saw; she saw nothing of the budding plants and the glowing afternoon. She saw, in the crude light of that revelation which had already become a part of experience and to which the very frailty of the vessel in which it had been offered her only gave an intrinsic price, the dry staring fact that she had been an applied handled hung-up tool, as senseless and convenient as mere shaped wood and iron. All the bitterness of this knowledge surged into her soul again; it was as if she felt on her lips the taste of dishonour. There was a moment during which, if she had turned and spoken, she would have said something that would hiss like a lash. But she closed her eyes, and then the hideous vision dropped. What remained was the cleverest woman in the world standing there within a few feet of her and knowing as little what to think as the meanest. Isabel's only revenge was to be silent still--to leave Madame Merle in this unprecedented situation. She left her there for a period that must have seemed long to this lady, who at last seated herself with a movement which was in itself a confession of helplessness. Then Isabel turned slow eyes, looking down at her. Madame Merle was very pale; her own eyes covered Isabel's face. She might see what she would, but her danger was over. Isabel would never accuse her, never reproach her; perhaps because she never would give her the opportunity to defend herself. "I'm come to bid Pansy good-bye," our young woman said at last. "I go to England to-night." "Go to England to-night!" Madame Merle repeated sitting there and looking up at her. "I'm going to Gardencourt. Ralph Touchett's dying." "Ah, you'll feel that." Madame Merle recovered herself; she had a chance to express sympathy. "Do you go alone?" "Yes; without my husband." Madame Merle gave a low vague murmur; a sort of recognition of the general sadness of things. "Mr. Touchett never liked me, but I'm sorry he's dying. Shall you see his mother?" "Yes; she has returned from America." "She used to be very kind to me; but she has changed. Others too have changed," said Madame Merle with a quiet noble pathos. She paused a moment, then added: "And you'll see dear old Gardencourt again!" "I shall not enjoy it much," Isabel answered. "Naturally--in your grief. But it's on the whole, of all the houses I know, and I know many, the one I should have liked best to live in. I don't venture to send a message to the people," Madame Merle added; "but I should like to give my love to the place." Isabel turned away. "I had better go to Pansy. I've not much time." While she looked about her for the proper egress, the door opened and admitted one of the ladies of the house, who advanced with a discreet smile, gently rubbing, under her long loose sleeves, a pair of plump white hands. Isabel recognised Madame Catherine, whose acquaintance she had already made, and begged that she would immediately let her see Miss Osmond. Madame Catherine looked doubly discreet, but smiled very blandly and said: "It will be good for her to see you. I'll take you to her myself." Then she directed her pleased guarded vision to Madame Merle. "Will you let me remain a little?" this lady asked. "It's so good to be here." "You may remain always if you like!" And the good sister gave a knowing laugh. She led Isabel out of the room, through several corridors, and up a long staircase. All these departments were solid and bare, light and clean; so, thought Isabel, are the great penal establishments. Madame Catherine gently pushed open the door of Pansy's room and ushered in the visitor; then stood smiling with folded hands while the two others met and embraced. "She's glad to see you," she repeated; "it will do her good." And she placed the best chair carefully for Isabel. But she made no movement to seat herself; she seemed ready to retire. "How does this dear child look?" she asked of Isabel, lingering a moment. "She looks pale," Isabel answered. "That's the pleasure of seeing you. She's very happy. Elle eclaire la maison," said the good sister. Pansy wore, as Madame Merle had said, a little black dress; it was perhaps this that made her look pale. "They're very good to me--they think of everything!" she exclaimed with all her customary eagerness to accommodate. "We think of you always--you're a precious charge," Madame Catherine remarked in the tone of a woman with whom benevolence was a habit and whose conception of duty was the acceptance of every care. It fell with a leaden weight on Isabel's ears; it seemed to represent the surrender of a personality, the authority of the Church. When Madame Catherine had left them together Pansy kneeled down and hid her head in her stepmother's lap. So she remained some moments, while Isabel gently stroked her hair. Then she got up, averting her face and looking about the room. "Don't you think I've arranged it well? I've everything I have at home." "It's very pretty; you're very comfortable." Isabel scarcely knew what she could say to her. On the one hand she couldn't let her think she had come to pity her, and on the other it would be a dull mockery to pretend to rejoice with her. So she simply added after a moment: "I've come to bid you good-bye. I'm going to England." Pansy's white little face turned red. "To England! Not to come back?" "I don't know when I shall come back." "Ah, I'm sorry," Pansy breathed with faintness. She spoke as if she had no right to criticise; but her tone expressed a depth of disappointment. "My cousin, Mr. Touchett, is very ill; he'll probably die. I wish to see him," Isabel said. "Ah yes; you told me he would die. Of course you must go. And will papa go?" "No; I shall go alone." For a moment the girl said nothing. Isabel had often wondered what she thought of the apparent relations of her father with his wife; but never by a glance, by an intimation, had she let it be seen that she deemed them deficient in an air of intimacy. She made her reflexions, Isabel was sure; and she must have had a conviction that there were husbands and wives who were more intimate than that. But Pansy was not indiscreet even in thought; she would as little have ventured to judge her gentle stepmother as to criticise her magnificent father. Her heart may have stood almost as still as it would have done had she seen two of the saints in the great picture in the convent chapel turn their painted heads and shake them at each other. But as in this latter case she would (for very solemnity's sake) never have mentioned the awful phenomenon, so she put away all knowledge of the secrets of larger lives than her own. "You'll be very far away," she presently went on. "Yes; I shall be far away. But it will scarcely matter," Isabel explained; "since so long as you're here I can't be called near you." "Yes, but you can come and see me; though you've not come very often." "I've not come because your father forbade it. To-day I bring nothing with me. I can't amuse you." "I'm not to be amused. That's not what papa wishes." "Then it hardly matters whether I'm in Rome or in England." "You're not happy, Mrs. Osmond," said Pansy. "Not very. But it doesn't matter." "That's what I say to myself. What does it matter? But I should like to come out." "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. Pansy looked at her pleadingly. "Did papa tell you to bring me?" "No; it's my own proposal." "I think I had better wait then. Did papa send me no message?" "I don't think he knew I was coming." "He thinks I've not had enough," said Pansy. "But I have. The ladies are very kind to me and the little girls come to see me. 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." "What have you thought?" "Well, that I must never displease papa." "You knew that before." "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. It was well that Mr. Edward Rosier had kept his enamels! Isabel looked into her eyes and saw there mainly a prayer to be treated easily. She laid her hand on Pansy's as if to let her know that her look conveyed no diminution of esteem; for the collapse of the girl's momentary resistance (mute and modest thought it had been) seemed only her tribute to the truth of things. She didn't presume to judge others, but she had judged herself; she had seen the reality. She had no vocation for struggling with combinations; in the solemnity of sequestration there was something that overwhelmed her. She bowed her pretty head to authority and only asked of authority to be merciful. Yes; it was very well that Edward Rosier had reserved a few articles! Isabel got up; her time was rapidly shortening. "Good-bye then. I leave Rome to-night." Pansy took hold of her dress; there was a sudden change in the child's face. "You look strange, you frighten me." "Oh, I'm very harmless," said Isabel. "Perhaps you won't come back?" "Perhaps not. I can't tell." "Ah, Mrs. Osmond, you won't leave me!" Isabel now saw she had guessed everything. "My dear child, what can I do for you?" she asked. "I don't know--but I'm happier when I think of you." "You can always think of me." "Not when you're so far. I'm a little afraid," said Pansy. "What are you afraid of?" "Of papa--a little. And of Madame Merle. She has just been to see me." "You must not say that," Isabel observed. "Oh, I'll do everything they want. Only if you're here I shall do it more easily." Isabel considered. "I won't desert you," she said at last. "Good-bye, my child." Then they held each other a moment in a silent embrace, like two sisters; and afterwards Pansy walked along the corridor with her visitor to the top of the staircase. "Madame Merle has been here," she remarked as they went; and as Isabel answered nothing she added abruptly: "I don't like Madame Merle!" Isabel hesitated, then stopped. "You must never say that--that you don't like Madame Merle." Pansy looked at her in wonder; but wonder with Pansy had never been a reason for non-compliance. "I never will again," she said with exquisite gentleness. At the top of the staircase they had to separate, as it appeared to be part of the mild but very definite discipline under which Pansy lived that she should not go down. Isabel descended, and when she reached the bottom the girl was standing above. "You'll come back?" she called out in a voice that Isabel remembered afterwards. "Yes--I'll come back." Madame Catherine met Mrs. Osmond below and conducted her to the door of the parlour, outside of which the two stood talking a minute. "I won't go in," said the good sister. "Madame Merle's waiting for you." At this announcement Isabel stiffened; she was on the point of asking if there were no other egress from the convent. But a moment's reflexion assured her that she would do well not to betray to the worthy nun her desire to avoid Pansy's other friend. Her companion grasped her arm very gently and, fixing her a moment with wise, benevolent eyes, said in French and almost familiarly: "Eh bien, chere Madame, qu'en pensez-vous?" "About my step-daughter? Oh, it would take long to tell you." "We think it's enough," Madame Catherine distinctly observed. And she pushed open the door of the parlour. Madame Merle was sitting just as Isabel had left her, like a woman so absorbed in thought that she had not moved a little finger. As Madame Catherine closed the door she got up, and Isabel saw that she had been thinking to some purpose. She had recovered her balance; she was in full possession of her resources. "I found I wished to wait for you," she said urbanely. "But it's not to talk about Pansy." Isabel wondered what it could be to talk about, and in spite of Madame Merle's declaration she answered after a moment: "Madame Catherine says it's enough." "Yes; it also seems to me enough. I wanted to ask you another word about poor Mr. Touchett," Madame Merle added. "Have you reason to believe that he's really at his last?" "I've no information but a telegram. Unfortunately it only confirms a probability." "I'm going to ask you a strange question," said Madame Merle. "Are you very fond of your cousin?" And she gave a smile as strange as her utterance. "Yes, I'm very fond of him. But I don't understand you." She just hung fire. "It's rather hard to explain. Something has occurred to me which may not have occurred to you, and I give you the benefit of my idea. Your cousin did you once a great service. Have you never guessed it?" "He has done me many services." "Yes; but one was much above the rest. He made you a rich woman." "HE made me--?" Madame Merle appearing to see herself successful, she went on more triumphantly: "He imparted to you that extra lustre which was required to make you a brilliant match. At bottom it's him you've to thank." She stopped; there was something in Isabel's eyes. "I don't understand you. It was my uncle's money." "Yes; it was your uncle's money, but it was your cousin's idea. He brought his father over to it. Ah, my dear, the sum was large!" Isabel stood staring; she seemed to-day to live in a world illumined by lurid flashes. "I don't know why you say such things. I don't know what you know." "I know nothing but what I've guessed. But I've guessed that." Isabel went to the door and, when she had opened it, stood a moment with her hand on the latch. Then she said--it was her only revenge: "I believed it was you I had to thank!" 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." Madame Merle raised her eyes. "I shall go to America," she quietly remarked while Isabel passed out.

Before departing for London, Isabel decides to visit Pansy. As she is waiting for Pansy, she is surprised to happen upon Madame Merle. Seeing this woman who was so present to her imagination all day in the flesh is like seeing "a painted picture move". Isabel feels that this is like evidence in court against Merle, of Merle's own interest in Pansy's affairs. Merle offers up the excuse that she should have told Isabel she meant to visit Pansy, and that she only thought Pansy might be lonely. Merle talks at length about Pansy and the convent. Isabel then noted a sudden break in her voice -- a modulation that marked Merle's perception of Isabel's changed attitude towards her. She realizes that Isabel knows her secret. She falters for a moment, but then she regains herself. She realizes that she is only safe if she does not betray herself. Isabel sees this all as if it is reflected in a "clear glass". Isabel enjoys the knowledge that Madame Merle had felt herself being exposed. Isabel is looking out the window though, and she sees - not the garden outside, but rather, the "dry staring fact that she had been an applied handled hung-up tool". Her only revenge though is not to react, to sit there silently. Merle realizes that Isabel will never reproach her, never given her the opportunity to defend herself. Isabel goes to see Pansy, and she feels that the girl has been "vanquished" by her father's will. Pansy is worried that Isabel will leave her forever when she says that she will go to England. Pansy says it will be easier for her to do as Osmond and Merle like if Isabel is around. She declares that she does not like Merle, and Isabel cautions her to never say that again. Merle appeals to Isabel before she leaves the convent again. Merle tells Isabel that her cousin Ralph once did he a great service, and asks Isabel if she knows what it is. She goes on to tell Isabel that Ralph is the one who made her a rich woman -- it was Ralph's idea to give her the money, and Isabel ought to thank him for making a brilliant match. Isabel ironically replies that she thinks it is Merle that she has to thank. Merle lowers her eyes, recognizes Isabel is unhappy, and declares that she will go to America

summary

There was a train for Turin and Paris that evening; and after the Countess had left her Isabel had a rapid and decisive conference with her maid, who was discreet, devoted and active. After this she thought (except of her journey) only of one thing. She must go and see Pansy; from her she couldn't turn away. She had not seen her yet, as Osmond had given her to understand that it was too soon to begin. She drove at five o'clock to a high floor in a narrow street in the quarter of the Piazza Navona, and was admitted by the portress of the convent, a genial and obsequious person. Isabel had been at this institution before; she had come with Pansy to see the sisters. She knew they were good women, and she saw that the large rooms were clean and cheerful and that the well-used garden had sun for winter and shade for spring. But she disliked the place, which affronted and almost frightened her; not for the world would she have spent a night there. It produced to-day more than before the impression of a well-appointed prison; for it was not possible to pretend Pansy was free to leave it. This innocent creature had been presented to her in a new and violent light, but the secondary effect of the revelation was to make her reach out a hand. The portress left her to wait in the parlour of the convent while she went to make it known that there was a visitor for the dear young lady. The parlour was a vast, cold apartment, with new-looking furniture; a large clean stove of white porcelain, unlighted, a collection of wax flowers under glass, and a series of engravings from religious pictures on the walls. On the other occasion Isabel had thought it less like Rome than like Philadelphia, but to-day she made no reflexions; the apartment only seemed to her very empty and very soundless. The portress returned at the end of some five minutes, ushering in another person. Isabel got up, expecting to see one of the ladies of the sisterhood, but to her extreme surprise found herself confronted with Madame Merle. The effect was strange, for Madame Merle was already so present to her vision that her appearance in the flesh was like suddenly, and rather awfully, seeing a painted picture move. Isabel had been thinking all day of her falsity, her audacity, her ability, her probable suffering; and these dark things seemed to flash with a sudden light as she entered the room. Her being there at all had the character of ugly evidence, of handwritings, of profaned relics, of grim things produced in court. It made Isabel feel faint; if it had been necessary to speak on the spot she would have been quite unable. But no such necessity was distinct to her; it seemed to her indeed that she had absolutely nothing to say to Madame Merle. In one's relations with this lady, however, there were never any absolute necessities; she had a manner which carried off not only her own deficiencies but those of other people. But she was different from usual; she came in slowly, behind the portress, and Isabel instantly perceived that she was not likely to depend upon her habitual resources. For her too the occasion was exceptional, and she had undertaken to treat it by the light of the moment. This gave her a peculiar gravity; she pretended not even to smile, and though Isabel saw that she was more than ever playing a part it seemed to her that on the whole the wonderful woman had never been so natural. She looked at her young friend from head to foot, but not harshly nor defiantly; with a cold gentleness rather, and an absence of any air of allusion to their last meeting. It was as if she had wished to mark a distinction. She had been irritated then, she was reconciled now. "You can leave us alone," she said to the portress; "in five minutes this lady will ring for you." And then she turned to Isabel, who, after noting what has just been mentioned, had ceased to notice and had let her eyes wander as far as the limits of the room would allow. She wished never to look at Madame Merle again. "You're surprised to find me here, and I'm afraid you're not pleased," this lady went on. "You don't see why I should have come; it's as if I had anticipated you. I confess I've been rather indiscreet--I ought to have asked your permission." There was none of the oblique movement of irony in this; it was said simply and mildly; but Isabel, far afloat on a sea of wonder and pain, could not have told herself with what intention it was uttered. "But I've not been sitting long," Madame Merle continued; "that is I've not been long with Pansy. I came to see her because it occurred to me this afternoon that she must be rather lonely and perhaps even a little miserable. It may be good for a small girl; I know so little about small girls; I can't tell. At any rate it's a little dismal. Therefore I came--on the chance. I knew of course that you'd come, and her father as well; still, I had not been told other visitors were forbidden. The good woman--what's her name? Madame Catherine--made no objection whatever. I stayed twenty minutes with Pansy; she has a charming little room, not in the least conventual, with a piano and flowers. She has arranged it delightfully; she has so much taste. Of course it's all none of my business, but I feel happier since I've seen her. She may even have a maid if she likes; but of course she has no occasion to dress. She wears a little black frock; she looks so charming. I went afterwards to see Mother Catherine, who has a very good room too; I assure you I don't find the poor sisters at all monastic. Mother Catherine has a most coquettish little toilet-table, with something that looked uncommonly like a bottle of eau-de-Cologne. She speaks delightfully of Pansy; says it's a great happiness for them to have her. She's a little saint of heaven and a model to the oldest of them. Just as I was leaving Madame Catherine the portress came to say to her that there was a lady for the signorina. Of course I knew it must be you, and I asked her to let me go and receive you in her place. She demurred greatly--I must tell you that--and said it was her duty to notify the Mother Superior; it was of such high importance that you should be treated with respect. I requested her to let the Mother Superior alone and asked her how she supposed I would treat you!" So Madame Merle went on, with much of the brilliancy of a woman who had long been a mistress of the art of conversation. But there were phases and gradations in her speech, not one of which was lost upon Isabel's ear, though her eyes were absent from her companion's face. She had not proceeded far before Isabel noted a sudden break in her voice, a lapse in her continuity, which was in itself a complete drama. This subtle modulation marked a momentous discovery--the perception of an entirely new attitude on the part of her listener. Madame Merle had guessed in the space of an instant that everything was at end between them, and in the space of another instant she had guessed the reason why. The person who stood there was not the same one she had seen hitherto, but was a very different person--a person who knew her secret. This discovery was tremendous, and from the moment she made it the most accomplished of women faltered and lost her courage. But only for that moment. Then the conscious stream of her perfect manner gathered itself again and flowed on as smoothly as might be to the end. But it was only because she had the end in view that she was able to proceed. She had been touched with a point that made her quiver, and she needed all the alertness of her will to repress her agitation. Her only safety was in her not betraying herself. She resisted this, but the startled quality of her voice refused to improve--she couldn't help it--while she heard herself say she hardly knew what. The tide of her confidence ebbed, and she was able only just to glide into port, faintly grazing the bottom. Isabel saw it all as distinctly as if it had been reflected in a large clear glass. It might have been a great moment for her, for it might have been a moment of triumph. That Madame Merle had lost her pluck and saw before her the phantom of exposure--this in itself was a revenge, this in itself was almost the promise of a brighter day. And for a moment during which she stood apparently looking out of the window, with her back half-turned, Isabel enjoyed that knowledge. On the other side of the window lay the garden of the convent; but this is not what she saw; she saw nothing of the budding plants and the glowing afternoon. She saw, in the crude light of that revelation which had already become a part of experience and to which the very frailty of the vessel in which it had been offered her only gave an intrinsic price, the dry staring fact that she had been an applied handled hung-up tool, as senseless and convenient as mere shaped wood and iron. All the bitterness of this knowledge surged into her soul again; it was as if she felt on her lips the taste of dishonour. There was a moment during which, if she had turned and spoken, she would have said something that would hiss like a lash. But she closed her eyes, and then the hideous vision dropped. What remained was the cleverest woman in the world standing there within a few feet of her and knowing as little what to think as the meanest. Isabel's only revenge was to be silent still--to leave Madame Merle in this unprecedented situation. She left her there for a period that must have seemed long to this lady, who at last seated herself with a movement which was in itself a confession of helplessness. Then Isabel turned slow eyes, looking down at her. Madame Merle was very pale; her own eyes covered Isabel's face. She might see what she would, but her danger was over. Isabel would never accuse her, never reproach her; perhaps because she never would give her the opportunity to defend herself. "I'm come to bid Pansy good-bye," our young woman said at last. "I go to England to-night." "Go to England to-night!" Madame Merle repeated sitting there and looking up at her. "I'm going to Gardencourt. Ralph Touchett's dying." "Ah, you'll feel that." Madame Merle recovered herself; she had a chance to express sympathy. "Do you go alone?" "Yes; without my husband." Madame Merle gave a low vague murmur; a sort of recognition of the general sadness of things. "Mr. Touchett never liked me, but I'm sorry he's dying. Shall you see his mother?" "Yes; she has returned from America." "She used to be very kind to me; but she has changed. Others too have changed," said Madame Merle with a quiet noble pathos. She paused a moment, then added: "And you'll see dear old Gardencourt again!" "I shall not enjoy it much," Isabel answered. "Naturally--in your grief. But it's on the whole, of all the houses I know, and I know many, the one I should have liked best to live in. I don't venture to send a message to the people," Madame Merle added; "but I should like to give my love to the place." Isabel turned away. "I had better go to Pansy. I've not much time." While she looked about her for the proper egress, the door opened and admitted one of the ladies of the house, who advanced with a discreet smile, gently rubbing, under her long loose sleeves, a pair of plump white hands. Isabel recognised Madame Catherine, whose acquaintance she had already made, and begged that she would immediately let her see Miss Osmond. Madame Catherine looked doubly discreet, but smiled very blandly and said: "It will be good for her to see you. I'll take you to her myself." Then she directed her pleased guarded vision to Madame Merle. "Will you let me remain a little?" this lady asked. "It's so good to be here." "You may remain always if you like!" And the good sister gave a knowing laugh. She led Isabel out of the room, through several corridors, and up a long staircase. All these departments were solid and bare, light and clean; so, thought Isabel, are the great penal establishments. Madame Catherine gently pushed open the door of Pansy's room and ushered in the visitor; then stood smiling with folded hands while the two others met and embraced. "She's glad to see you," she repeated; "it will do her good." And she placed the best chair carefully for Isabel. But she made no movement to seat herself; she seemed ready to retire. "How does this dear child look?" she asked of Isabel, lingering a moment. "She looks pale," Isabel answered. "That's the pleasure of seeing you. She's very happy. Elle eclaire la maison," said the good sister. Pansy wore, as Madame Merle had said, a little black dress; it was perhaps this that made her look pale. "They're very good to me--they think of everything!" she exclaimed with all her customary eagerness to accommodate. "We think of you always--you're a precious charge," Madame Catherine remarked in the tone of a woman with whom benevolence was a habit and whose conception of duty was the acceptance of every care. It fell with a leaden weight on Isabel's ears; it seemed to represent the surrender of a personality, the authority of the Church. When Madame Catherine had left them together Pansy kneeled down and hid her head in her stepmother's lap. So she remained some moments, while Isabel gently stroked her hair. Then she got up, averting her face and looking about the room. "Don't you think I've arranged it well? I've everything I have at home." "It's very pretty; you're very comfortable." Isabel scarcely knew what she could say to her. On the one hand she couldn't let her think she had come to pity her, and on the other it would be a dull mockery to pretend to rejoice with her. So she simply added after a moment: "I've come to bid you good-bye. I'm going to England." Pansy's white little face turned red. "To England! Not to come back?" "I don't know when I shall come back." "Ah, I'm sorry," Pansy breathed with faintness. She spoke as if she had no right to criticise; but her tone expressed a depth of disappointment. "My cousin, Mr. Touchett, is very ill; he'll probably die. I wish to see him," Isabel said. "Ah yes; you told me he would die. Of course you must go. And will papa go?" "No; I shall go alone." For a moment the girl said nothing. Isabel had often wondered what she thought of the apparent relations of her father with his wife; but never by a glance, by an intimation, had she let it be seen that she deemed them deficient in an air of intimacy. She made her reflexions, Isabel was sure; and she must have had a conviction that there were husbands and wives who were more intimate than that. But Pansy was not indiscreet even in thought; she would as little have ventured to judge her gentle stepmother as to criticise her magnificent father. Her heart may have stood almost as still as it would have done had she seen two of the saints in the great picture in the convent chapel turn their painted heads and shake them at each other. But as in this latter case she would (for very solemnity's sake) never have mentioned the awful phenomenon, so she put away all knowledge of the secrets of larger lives than her own. "You'll be very far away," she presently went on. "Yes; I shall be far away. But it will scarcely matter," Isabel explained; "since so long as you're here I can't be called near you." "Yes, but you can come and see me; though you've not come very often." "I've not come because your father forbade it. To-day I bring nothing with me. I can't amuse you." "I'm not to be amused. That's not what papa wishes." "Then it hardly matters whether I'm in Rome or in England." "You're not happy, Mrs. Osmond," said Pansy. "Not very. But it doesn't matter." "That's what I say to myself. What does it matter? But I should like to come out." "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. Pansy looked at her pleadingly. "Did papa tell you to bring me?" "No; it's my own proposal." "I think I had better wait then. Did papa send me no message?" "I don't think he knew I was coming." "He thinks I've not had enough," said Pansy. "But I have. The ladies are very kind to me and the little girls come to see me. 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." "What have you thought?" "Well, that I must never displease papa." "You knew that before." "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. It was well that Mr. Edward Rosier had kept his enamels! Isabel looked into her eyes and saw there mainly a prayer to be treated easily. She laid her hand on Pansy's as if to let her know that her look conveyed no diminution of esteem; for the collapse of the girl's momentary resistance (mute and modest thought it had been) seemed only her tribute to the truth of things. She didn't presume to judge others, but she had judged herself; she had seen the reality. She had no vocation for struggling with combinations; in the solemnity of sequestration there was something that overwhelmed her. She bowed her pretty head to authority and only asked of authority to be merciful. Yes; it was very well that Edward Rosier had reserved a few articles! Isabel got up; her time was rapidly shortening. "Good-bye then. I leave Rome to-night." Pansy took hold of her dress; there was a sudden change in the child's face. "You look strange, you frighten me." "Oh, I'm very harmless," said Isabel. "Perhaps you won't come back?" "Perhaps not. I can't tell." "Ah, Mrs. Osmond, you won't leave me!" Isabel now saw she had guessed everything. "My dear child, what can I do for you?" she asked. "I don't know--but I'm happier when I think of you." "You can always think of me." "Not when you're so far. I'm a little afraid," said Pansy. "What are you afraid of?" "Of papa--a little. And of Madame Merle. She has just been to see me." "You must not say that," Isabel observed. "Oh, I'll do everything they want. Only if you're here I shall do it more easily." Isabel considered. "I won't desert you," she said at last. "Good-bye, my child." Then they held each other a moment in a silent embrace, like two sisters; and afterwards Pansy walked along the corridor with her visitor to the top of the staircase. "Madame Merle has been here," she remarked as they went; and as Isabel answered nothing she added abruptly: "I don't like Madame Merle!" Isabel hesitated, then stopped. "You must never say that--that you don't like Madame Merle." Pansy looked at her in wonder; but wonder with Pansy had never been a reason for non-compliance. "I never will again," she said with exquisite gentleness. At the top of the staircase they had to separate, as it appeared to be part of the mild but very definite discipline under which Pansy lived that she should not go down. Isabel descended, and when she reached the bottom the girl was standing above. "You'll come back?" she called out in a voice that Isabel remembered afterwards. "Yes--I'll come back." Madame Catherine met Mrs. Osmond below and conducted her to the door of the parlour, outside of which the two stood talking a minute. "I won't go in," said the good sister. "Madame Merle's waiting for you." At this announcement Isabel stiffened; she was on the point of asking if there were no other egress from the convent. But a moment's reflexion assured her that she would do well not to betray to the worthy nun her desire to avoid Pansy's other friend. Her companion grasped her arm very gently and, fixing her a moment with wise, benevolent eyes, said in French and almost familiarly: "Eh bien, chere Madame, qu'en pensez-vous?" "About my step-daughter? Oh, it would take long to tell you." "We think it's enough," Madame Catherine distinctly observed. And she pushed open the door of the parlour. Madame Merle was sitting just as Isabel had left her, like a woman so absorbed in thought that she had not moved a little finger. As Madame Catherine closed the door she got up, and Isabel saw that she had been thinking to some purpose. She had recovered her balance; she was in full possession of her resources. "I found I wished to wait for you," she said urbanely. "But it's not to talk about Pansy." Isabel wondered what it could be to talk about, and in spite of Madame Merle's declaration she answered after a moment: "Madame Catherine says it's enough." "Yes; it also seems to me enough. I wanted to ask you another word about poor Mr. Touchett," Madame Merle added. "Have you reason to believe that he's really at his last?" "I've no information but a telegram. Unfortunately it only confirms a probability." "I'm going to ask you a strange question," said Madame Merle. "Are you very fond of your cousin?" And she gave a smile as strange as her utterance. "Yes, I'm very fond of him. But I don't understand you." She just hung fire. "It's rather hard to explain. Something has occurred to me which may not have occurred to you, and I give you the benefit of my idea. Your cousin did you once a great service. Have you never guessed it?" "He has done me many services." "Yes; but one was much above the rest. He made you a rich woman." "HE made me--?" Madame Merle appearing to see herself successful, she went on more triumphantly: "He imparted to you that extra lustre which was required to make you a brilliant match. At bottom it's him you've to thank." She stopped; there was something in Isabel's eyes. "I don't understand you. It was my uncle's money." "Yes; it was your uncle's money, but it was your cousin's idea. He brought his father over to it. Ah, my dear, the sum was large!" Isabel stood staring; she seemed to-day to live in a world illumined by lurid flashes. "I don't know why you say such things. I don't know what you know." "I know nothing but what I've guessed. But I've guessed that." Isabel went to the door and, when she had opened it, stood a moment with her hand on the latch. Then she said--it was her only revenge: "I believed it was you I had to thank!" 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." Madame Merle raised her eyes. "I shall go to America," she quietly remarked while Isabel passed out.

The scene between Madame Merle and Isabel in Chapter 52 is a very important one for understanding James' project. In the preface, he has declared that Isabel is made extraordinary by her perceptiveness. Yet, we have learned that she often does not see what is right in front of her, being willfully ignorant, and she often sees more than what is right in front of her, allowing her imagination to work on the material right in front of her. In this scene however, Isabel finally is victorious in understanding the situation and allowing herself to be seen as an all-knowing and seeing entity. Merle sees that Isabel knows what she is - she knows her true nature. However, Merle cannot resist taking her down a notch, proving to her that her vision is not so extraordinary after all, by telling her about Ralph's gift to her. It is as if Isabel is a "clear glass" that allows Merle to see herself as a monstrosity for the first time. The end of the novel seems haunted by the past. The so-called "ghost" of Ralph Touchett appears. Recall that Isabel had earlier thought that the house of Gardencourt might be haunted, and Ralph had joked that she might live to see the ghost. However, while Isabel had expected the ghost of European history to make its appearance in the house -- for she had associated European convention with haunted houses and Romances - now, this ghost has come to stand for the American experience in Europe. We might read this in terms of an understanding of Americans making their mark on the history of Europe, in line with the Old World vs. New World theme. Goodwood's forced kiss at the end of the novel and his speech to Isabel suggests that he thinks it is perfectly acceptable to begin an extramarital affair with her. Isabel however, fights against this possibility. Her running away from him suggests that she is willing to accept the consequences of her marriage to Osmond once and for all, and upholds the honor of her actions of marrying Osmond. She wants to uphold a conventional notion of duty. This is representative of Isabel's final moral action. We can also read the ending though as Isabel's weakness rather than her strength. Every time she has a scene with Caspar Goodwood, she has a very physical reaction to him. It is as if she is attracted to him physically but cannot accept this about herself. Goodwood thus seems to represent her unconscious desires from which she runs away.

analysis

It was not with surprise, it was with a feeling which in other circumstances would have had much of the effect of joy, that as Isabel descended from the Paris Mail at Charing Cross she stepped into the arms, as it were--or at any rate into the hands--of Henrietta Stackpole. She had telegraphed to her friend from Turin, and though she had not definitely said to herself that Henrietta would meet her, she had felt her telegram would produce some helpful result. On her long journey from Rome her mind had been given up to vagueness; she was unable to question the future. She performed this journey with sightless eyes and took little pleasure in the countries she traversed, decked out though they were in the richest freshness of spring. Her thoughts followed their course through other countries--strange-looking, dimly-lighted, pathless lands, in which there was no change of seasons, but only, as it seemed, a perpetual dreariness of winter. She had plenty to think about; but it was neither reflexion nor conscious purpose that filled her mind. Disconnected visions passed through it, and sudden dull gleams of memory, of expectation. The past and the future came and went at their will, but she saw them only in fitful images, which rose and fell by a logic of their own. It was extraordinary the things she remembered. Now that she was in the secret, now that she knew something that so much concerned her and the eclipse of which had made life resemble an attempt to play whist with an imperfect pack of cards, the truth of things, their mutual relations, their meaning, and for the most part their horror, rose before her with a kind of architectural vastness. She remembered a thousand trifles; they started to life with the spontaneity of a shiver. She had thought them trifles at the time; now she saw that they had been weighted with lead. Yet even now they were trifles after all, for of what use was it to her to understand them? Nothing seemed of use to her to-day. All purpose, all intention, was suspended; all desire too save the single desire to reach her much-embracing refuge. Gardencourt had been her starting-point, and to those muffled chambers it was at least a temporary solution to return. 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 had moments indeed in her journey from Rome which were almost as good as being dead. She sat in her corner, so motionless, so passive, simply with the sense of being carried, so detached from hope and regret, that she recalled to herself one of those Etruscan figures couched upon the receptacle of their ashes. There was nothing to regret now--that was all over. Not only the time of her folly, but the time of her repentance was far. The only thing to regret was that Madame Merle had been so--well, so unimaginable. Just here her intelligence dropped, from literal inability to say what it was that Madame Merle had been. Whatever it was it was for Madame Merle herself to regret it; and doubtless she would do so in America, where she had announced she was going. It concerned Isabel no more; she only had an impression that she should never again see Madame Merle. This impression carried her into the future, of which from time to time she had a mutilated glimpse. She saw herself, in the distant years, still in the attitude of a woman who had her life to live, and these intimations contradicted the spirit of the present hour. 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; she was still young, after all, and a great many things might happen to her yet. To live only to suffer--only to feel the injury of life repeated and enlarged--it seemed to her she was too valuable, too capable, for that. 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. Then the middle years wrapped her about again and the grey curtain of her indifference closed her in. Henrietta kissed her, as Henrietta usually kissed, as if she were afraid she should be caught doing it; and then Isabel stood there in the crowd, looking about her, looking for her servant. She asked nothing; she wished to wait. She had a sudden perception that she should be helped. She rejoiced Henrietta had come; there was something terrible in an arrival in London. The dusky, smoky, far-arching vault of the station, the strange, livid light, the dense, dark, pushing crowd, filled her with a nervous fear and made her put her arm into her friend's. She remembered she had once liked these things; they seemed part of a mighty spectacle in which there was something that touched her. She remembered how she walked away from Euston, in the winter dusk, in the crowded streets, five years before. She could not have done that to-day, and the incident came before her as the deed of another person. "It's too beautiful that you should have come," said Henrietta, looking at her as if she thought Isabel might be prepared to challenge the proposition. "If you hadn't--if you hadn't; well, I don't know," remarked Miss Stackpole, hinting ominously at her powers of disapproval. Isabel looked about without seeing her maid. Her eyes rested on another figure, however, which she felt she had seen before; and in a moment she recognised the genial countenance of Mr. Bantling. He stood a little apart, and it was not in the power of the multitude that pressed about him to make him yield an inch of the ground he had taken--that of abstracting himself discreetly while the two ladies performed their embraces. "There's Mr. Bantling," said Isabel, gently, irrelevantly, scarcely caring much now whether she should find her maid or not. "Oh yes, he goes everywhere with me. Come here, Mr. Bantling!" Henrietta exclaimed. Whereupon the gallant bachelor advanced with a smile--a smile tempered, however, by the gravity of the occasion. "Isn't it lovely she has come?" Henrietta asked. "He knows all about it," she added; "we had quite a discussion. He said you wouldn't, I said you would." "I thought you always agreed," Isabel smiled in return. She felt she could smile now; she had seen in an instant, in Mr. Bantling's brave eyes, that he had good news for her. They seemed to say he wished her to remember he was an old friend of her cousin--that he understood, that it was all right. Isabel gave him her hand; she thought of him, extravagantly, as a beautiful blameless knight. "Oh, I always agree," said Mr. Bantling. "But she doesn't, you know." "Didn't I tell you that a maid was a nuisance?" Henrietta enquired. "Your young lady has probably remained at Calais." "I don't care," said Isabel, looking at Mr. Bantling, whom she had never found so interesting. "Stay with her while I go and see," Henrietta commanded, leaving the two for a moment together. They stood there at first in silence, and then Mr. Bantling asked Isabel how it had been on the Channel. "Very fine. No, I believe it was very rough," she said, to her companion's obvious surprise. After which she added: "You've been to Gardencourt, I know." "Now how do you know that?" "I can't tell you--except that you look like a person who has been to Gardencourt." "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. Poor Mr. Bantling, however, was still in this inferior stage. He blushed a good deal and laughed, he assured her that he was often very blue, and that when he was blue he was awfully fierce. "You can ask Miss Stackpole, you know. I was at Gardencourt two days ago." "Did you see my cousin?" "Only for a little. But he had been seeing people; Warburton had been there the day before. Ralph was just the same as usual, except that he was in bed and that he looks tremendously ill and that he can't speak," Mr. Bantling pursued. "He was awfully jolly and funny all the same. He was just as clever as ever. It's awfully wretched." Even in the crowded, noisy station this simple picture was vivid. "Was that late in the day?" "Yes; I went on purpose. We thought you'd like to know." "I'm greatly obliged to you. Can I go down tonight?" "Ah, I don't think SHE'LL let you go," said Mr. Bantling. "She wants you to stop with her. I made Touchett's man promise to telegraph me to-day, and I found the telegram an hour ago at my club. 'Quiet and easy,' that's what it says, and it's dated two o'clock. So you see you can wait till to-morrow. You must be awfully tired." "Yes, I'm awfully tired. And I thank you again." "Oh," said Mr. Bantling, "We were certain you would like the last news." On which Isabel vaguely noted that he and Henrietta seemed after all to agree. Miss Stackpole came back with Isabel's maid, whom she had caught in the act of proving her utility. This excellent person, instead of losing herself in the crowd, had simply attended to her mistress's luggage, so that the latter was now at liberty to leave the station. "You know you're not to think of going to the country to-night," Henrietta remarked to her. "It doesn't matter whether there's a train or not. You're to come straight to me in Wimpole Street. There isn't a corner to be had in London, but I've got you one all the same. It isn't a Roman palace, but it will do for a night." "I'll do whatever you wish," Isabel said. "You'll come and answer a few questions; that's what I wish." "She doesn't say anything about dinner, does she, Mrs. Osmond?" Mr. Bantling enquired jocosely. Henrietta fixed him a moment with her speculative gaze. "I see you're in a great hurry to get your own. You'll be at the Paddington Station to-morrow morning at ten." "Don't come for my sake, Mr. Bantling," said Isabel. "He'll come for mine," Henrietta declared as she ushered her friend into a cab. And later, in a large dusky parlour in Wimpole Street--to do her justice there had been dinner enough--she asked those questions to which she had alluded at the station. "Did your husband make you a scene about your coming?" That was Miss Stackpole's first enquiry. "No; I can't say he made a scene." "He didn't object then?" "Yes, he objected very much. But it was not what you'd call a scene." "What was it then?" "It was a very quiet conversation." Henrietta for a moment regarded her guest. "It must have been hellish," she then remarked. And Isabel didn't deny that it had been hellish. But she confined herself to answering Henrietta's questions, which was easy, as they were tolerably definite. For the present she offered her no new information. "Well," said Miss Stackpole at last, "I've only one criticism to make. I don't see why you promised little Miss Osmond to go back." "I'm not sure I myself see now," Isabel replied. "But I did then." "If you've forgotten your reason perhaps you won't return." Isabel waited a moment. "Perhaps I shall find another." "You'll certainly never find a good one." "In default of a better my having promised will do," Isabel suggested. "Yes; that's why I hate it." "Don't speak of it now. I've a little time. Coming away was a complication, but what will going back be?" "You must remember, after all, that he won't make you a scene!" said Henrietta with much intention. "He will, though," Isabel answered gravely. "It won't be the scene of a moment; it will be a scene of the rest of my life." For some minutes the two women sat and considered this remainder, and then Miss Stackpole, to change the subject, as Isabel had requested, announced abruptly: "I've been to stay with Lady Pensil!" "Ah, the invitation came at last!" "Yes; it took five years. But this time she wanted to see me." "Naturally enough." "It was more natural than I think you know," said Henrietta, who fixed her eyes on a distant point. And then she added, turning suddenly: "Isabel Archer, I beg your pardon. You don't know why? Because I criticised you, and yet I've gone further than you. Mr. Osmond, at least, was born on the other side!" It was a moment before Isabel grasped her meaning; this sense was so modestly, or at least so ingeniously, veiled. Isabel's mind was not possessed at present with the comicality of things; but she greeted with a quick laugh the image that her companion had raised. She immediately recovered herself, however, and with the right excess of intensity, "Henrietta Stackpole," she asked, "are you going to give up your country?" "Yes, my poor Isabel, I am. I won't pretend to deny it; I look the fact in the face. I'm going to marry Mr. Bantling and locate right here in London." "It seems very strange," said Isabel, smiling now. "Well yes, I suppose it does. I've come to it little by little. I think I know what I'm doing; but I don't know as I can explain." "One can't explain one's marriage," Isabel answered. "And yours doesn't need to be explained. Mr. Bantling isn't a riddle." "No, he isn't a bad pun--or even a high flight of American humour. He has a beautiful nature," Henrietta went on. "I've studied him for many years and I see right through him. He's as clear as the style of a good prospectus. He's not intellectual, but he appreciates intellect. On the other hand he doesn't exaggerate its claims. I sometimes think we do in the United States." "Ah," said Isabel, "you're changed indeed! It's the first time I've ever heard you say anything against your native land." "I only say that we're too infatuated with mere brain-power; that, after all, isn't a vulgar fault. But I AM changed; a woman has to change a good deal to marry." "I hope you'll be very happy. You will at last--over here--see something of the inner life." Henrietta gave a little significant sigh. "That's the key to the mystery, I believe. I couldn't endure to be kept off. Now I've as good a right as any one!" she added with artless elation. Isabel was duly diverted, but there was a certain melancholy in her view. Henrietta, after all, had confessed herself human and feminine, Henrietta whom she had hitherto regarded as a light keen flame, a disembodied voice. It was a disappointment to find she had personal susceptibilities, that she was subject to common passions, and that her intimacy with Mr. Bantling had not been completely original. There was a want of originality in her marrying him--there was even a kind of stupidity; and for a moment, to Isabel's sense, the dreariness of the world took on a deeper tinge. A little later indeed she reflected that Mr. Bantling himself at least was original. But she didn't see how Henrietta could give up her country. She herself had relaxed her hold of it, but it had never been her country as it had been Henrietta's. She presently asked her if she had enjoyed her visit to Lady Pensil. "Oh yes," said Henrietta, "she didn't know what to make of me." "And was that very enjoyable?" "Very much so, because she's supposed to be a master mind. She thinks she knows everything; but she doesn't understand a woman of my modern type. It would be so much easier for her if I were only a little better or a little worse. She's so puzzled; I believe she thinks it's my duty to go and do something immoral. She thinks it's immoral that I should marry her brother; but, after all, that isn't immoral enough. And she'll never understand my mixture--never!" "She's not so intelligent as her brother then," said Isabel. "He appears to have understood." "Oh no, he hasn't!" cried Miss Stackpole with decision. "I really believe that's what he wants to marry me for--just to find out the mystery and the proportions of it. That's a fixed idea--a kind of fascination." "It's very good in you to humour it." "Oh well," said Henrietta, "I've something to find out too!" And Isabel saw that she had not renounced an allegiance, but planned an attack. She was at last about to grapple in earnest with England. Isabel also perceived, however, on the morrow, at the Paddington Station, where she found herself, at ten o'clock, in the company both of Miss Stackpole and Mr. Bantling, that the gentleman bore his perplexities lightly. If he had not found out everything he had found out at least the great point--that Miss Stackpole would not be wanting in initiative. It was evident that in the selection of a wife he had been on his guard against this deficiency. "Henrietta has told me, and I'm very glad," Isabel said as she gave him her hand. "I dare say you think it awfully odd," Mr. Bantling replied, resting on his neat umbrella. "Yes, I think it awfully odd." "You can't think it so awfully odd as I do. But I've always rather liked striking out a line," said Mr. Bantling serenely.

On Isabel's journey to Gardencourt, she has many disconnected visions as she looks out the window -- not of what is outside, but rather she has "sightless eyes. She thinks back to many memories and of her own expectations, realizing the mutual relations and interconnectedness of things that she did not notice before. This rises before her like a vast architectural vastness. She wishes to give it all up, to not know anything. She thinks of her time in Rome as a time in which she was as good as dead - she was motionless and passive. Yet she feels now she will go on living much longer, and this gives her hope of happiness in the future. She is still optimistic that to live does not mean only to suffer. When she arrives in England, Henrietta Stackpole and Mr. Bantling greet her at the train station. Isabel lets Henrietta know that Osmond will make a scene when she returns, but that she has promised Pansy she will return. Henrietta announces that she will marry Mr. Bantling and relocate to London. Isabel is somewhat disappointed, thinking that a marriage to Mr. Bantling is somewhat unoriginal. Nevertheless she admires Henrietta because it seems that Henrietta is planning to "attack" London

summary

It was not with surprise, it was with a feeling which in other circumstances would have had much of the effect of joy, that as Isabel descended from the Paris Mail at Charing Cross she stepped into the arms, as it were--or at any rate into the hands--of Henrietta Stackpole. She had telegraphed to her friend from Turin, and though she had not definitely said to herself that Henrietta would meet her, she had felt her telegram would produce some helpful result. On her long journey from Rome her mind had been given up to vagueness; she was unable to question the future. She performed this journey with sightless eyes and took little pleasure in the countries she traversed, decked out though they were in the richest freshness of spring. Her thoughts followed their course through other countries--strange-looking, dimly-lighted, pathless lands, in which there was no change of seasons, but only, as it seemed, a perpetual dreariness of winter. She had plenty to think about; but it was neither reflexion nor conscious purpose that filled her mind. Disconnected visions passed through it, and sudden dull gleams of memory, of expectation. The past and the future came and went at their will, but she saw them only in fitful images, which rose and fell by a logic of their own. It was extraordinary the things she remembered. Now that she was in the secret, now that she knew something that so much concerned her and the eclipse of which had made life resemble an attempt to play whist with an imperfect pack of cards, the truth of things, their mutual relations, their meaning, and for the most part their horror, rose before her with a kind of architectural vastness. She remembered a thousand trifles; they started to life with the spontaneity of a shiver. She had thought them trifles at the time; now she saw that they had been weighted with lead. Yet even now they were trifles after all, for of what use was it to her to understand them? Nothing seemed of use to her to-day. All purpose, all intention, was suspended; all desire too save the single desire to reach her much-embracing refuge. Gardencourt had been her starting-point, and to those muffled chambers it was at least a temporary solution to return. 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 had moments indeed in her journey from Rome which were almost as good as being dead. She sat in her corner, so motionless, so passive, simply with the sense of being carried, so detached from hope and regret, that she recalled to herself one of those Etruscan figures couched upon the receptacle of their ashes. There was nothing to regret now--that was all over. Not only the time of her folly, but the time of her repentance was far. The only thing to regret was that Madame Merle had been so--well, so unimaginable. Just here her intelligence dropped, from literal inability to say what it was that Madame Merle had been. Whatever it was it was for Madame Merle herself to regret it; and doubtless she would do so in America, where she had announced she was going. It concerned Isabel no more; she only had an impression that she should never again see Madame Merle. This impression carried her into the future, of which from time to time she had a mutilated glimpse. She saw herself, in the distant years, still in the attitude of a woman who had her life to live, and these intimations contradicted the spirit of the present hour. 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; she was still young, after all, and a great many things might happen to her yet. To live only to suffer--only to feel the injury of life repeated and enlarged--it seemed to her she was too valuable, too capable, for that. 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. Then the middle years wrapped her about again and the grey curtain of her indifference closed her in. Henrietta kissed her, as Henrietta usually kissed, as if she were afraid she should be caught doing it; and then Isabel stood there in the crowd, looking about her, looking for her servant. She asked nothing; she wished to wait. She had a sudden perception that she should be helped. She rejoiced Henrietta had come; there was something terrible in an arrival in London. The dusky, smoky, far-arching vault of the station, the strange, livid light, the dense, dark, pushing crowd, filled her with a nervous fear and made her put her arm into her friend's. She remembered she had once liked these things; they seemed part of a mighty spectacle in which there was something that touched her. She remembered how she walked away from Euston, in the winter dusk, in the crowded streets, five years before. She could not have done that to-day, and the incident came before her as the deed of another person. "It's too beautiful that you should have come," said Henrietta, looking at her as if she thought Isabel might be prepared to challenge the proposition. "If you hadn't--if you hadn't; well, I don't know," remarked Miss Stackpole, hinting ominously at her powers of disapproval. Isabel looked about without seeing her maid. Her eyes rested on another figure, however, which she felt she had seen before; and in a moment she recognised the genial countenance of Mr. Bantling. He stood a little apart, and it was not in the power of the multitude that pressed about him to make him yield an inch of the ground he had taken--that of abstracting himself discreetly while the two ladies performed their embraces. "There's Mr. Bantling," said Isabel, gently, irrelevantly, scarcely caring much now whether she should find her maid or not. "Oh yes, he goes everywhere with me. Come here, Mr. Bantling!" Henrietta exclaimed. Whereupon the gallant bachelor advanced with a smile--a smile tempered, however, by the gravity of the occasion. "Isn't it lovely she has come?" Henrietta asked. "He knows all about it," she added; "we had quite a discussion. He said you wouldn't, I said you would." "I thought you always agreed," Isabel smiled in return. She felt she could smile now; she had seen in an instant, in Mr. Bantling's brave eyes, that he had good news for her. They seemed to say he wished her to remember he was an old friend of her cousin--that he understood, that it was all right. Isabel gave him her hand; she thought of him, extravagantly, as a beautiful blameless knight. "Oh, I always agree," said Mr. Bantling. "But she doesn't, you know." "Didn't I tell you that a maid was a nuisance?" Henrietta enquired. "Your young lady has probably remained at Calais." "I don't care," said Isabel, looking at Mr. Bantling, whom she had never found so interesting. "Stay with her while I go and see," Henrietta commanded, leaving the two for a moment together. They stood there at first in silence, and then Mr. Bantling asked Isabel how it had been on the Channel. "Very fine. No, I believe it was very rough," she said, to her companion's obvious surprise. After which she added: "You've been to Gardencourt, I know." "Now how do you know that?" "I can't tell you--except that you look like a person who has been to Gardencourt." "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. Poor Mr. Bantling, however, was still in this inferior stage. He blushed a good deal and laughed, he assured her that he was often very blue, and that when he was blue he was awfully fierce. "You can ask Miss Stackpole, you know. I was at Gardencourt two days ago." "Did you see my cousin?" "Only for a little. But he had been seeing people; Warburton had been there the day before. Ralph was just the same as usual, except that he was in bed and that he looks tremendously ill and that he can't speak," Mr. Bantling pursued. "He was awfully jolly and funny all the same. He was just as clever as ever. It's awfully wretched." Even in the crowded, noisy station this simple picture was vivid. "Was that late in the day?" "Yes; I went on purpose. We thought you'd like to know." "I'm greatly obliged to you. Can I go down tonight?" "Ah, I don't think SHE'LL let you go," said Mr. Bantling. "She wants you to stop with her. I made Touchett's man promise to telegraph me to-day, and I found the telegram an hour ago at my club. 'Quiet and easy,' that's what it says, and it's dated two o'clock. So you see you can wait till to-morrow. You must be awfully tired." "Yes, I'm awfully tired. And I thank you again." "Oh," said Mr. Bantling, "We were certain you would like the last news." On which Isabel vaguely noted that he and Henrietta seemed after all to agree. Miss Stackpole came back with Isabel's maid, whom she had caught in the act of proving her utility. This excellent person, instead of losing herself in the crowd, had simply attended to her mistress's luggage, so that the latter was now at liberty to leave the station. "You know you're not to think of going to the country to-night," Henrietta remarked to her. "It doesn't matter whether there's a train or not. You're to come straight to me in Wimpole Street. There isn't a corner to be had in London, but I've got you one all the same. It isn't a Roman palace, but it will do for a night." "I'll do whatever you wish," Isabel said. "You'll come and answer a few questions; that's what I wish." "She doesn't say anything about dinner, does she, Mrs. Osmond?" Mr. Bantling enquired jocosely. Henrietta fixed him a moment with her speculative gaze. "I see you're in a great hurry to get your own. You'll be at the Paddington Station to-morrow morning at ten." "Don't come for my sake, Mr. Bantling," said Isabel. "He'll come for mine," Henrietta declared as she ushered her friend into a cab. And later, in a large dusky parlour in Wimpole Street--to do her justice there had been dinner enough--she asked those questions to which she had alluded at the station. "Did your husband make you a scene about your coming?" That was Miss Stackpole's first enquiry. "No; I can't say he made a scene." "He didn't object then?" "Yes, he objected very much. But it was not what you'd call a scene." "What was it then?" "It was a very quiet conversation." Henrietta for a moment regarded her guest. "It must have been hellish," she then remarked. And Isabel didn't deny that it had been hellish. But she confined herself to answering Henrietta's questions, which was easy, as they were tolerably definite. For the present she offered her no new information. "Well," said Miss Stackpole at last, "I've only one criticism to make. I don't see why you promised little Miss Osmond to go back." "I'm not sure I myself see now," Isabel replied. "But I did then." "If you've forgotten your reason perhaps you won't return." Isabel waited a moment. "Perhaps I shall find another." "You'll certainly never find a good one." "In default of a better my having promised will do," Isabel suggested. "Yes; that's why I hate it." "Don't speak of it now. I've a little time. Coming away was a complication, but what will going back be?" "You must remember, after all, that he won't make you a scene!" said Henrietta with much intention. "He will, though," Isabel answered gravely. "It won't be the scene of a moment; it will be a scene of the rest of my life." For some minutes the two women sat and considered this remainder, and then Miss Stackpole, to change the subject, as Isabel had requested, announced abruptly: "I've been to stay with Lady Pensil!" "Ah, the invitation came at last!" "Yes; it took five years. But this time she wanted to see me." "Naturally enough." "It was more natural than I think you know," said Henrietta, who fixed her eyes on a distant point. And then she added, turning suddenly: "Isabel Archer, I beg your pardon. You don't know why? Because I criticised you, and yet I've gone further than you. Mr. Osmond, at least, was born on the other side!" It was a moment before Isabel grasped her meaning; this sense was so modestly, or at least so ingeniously, veiled. Isabel's mind was not possessed at present with the comicality of things; but she greeted with a quick laugh the image that her companion had raised. She immediately recovered herself, however, and with the right excess of intensity, "Henrietta Stackpole," she asked, "are you going to give up your country?" "Yes, my poor Isabel, I am. I won't pretend to deny it; I look the fact in the face. I'm going to marry Mr. Bantling and locate right here in London." "It seems very strange," said Isabel, smiling now. "Well yes, I suppose it does. I've come to it little by little. I think I know what I'm doing; but I don't know as I can explain." "One can't explain one's marriage," Isabel answered. "And yours doesn't need to be explained. Mr. Bantling isn't a riddle." "No, he isn't a bad pun--or even a high flight of American humour. He has a beautiful nature," Henrietta went on. "I've studied him for many years and I see right through him. He's as clear as the style of a good prospectus. He's not intellectual, but he appreciates intellect. On the other hand he doesn't exaggerate its claims. I sometimes think we do in the United States." "Ah," said Isabel, "you're changed indeed! It's the first time I've ever heard you say anything against your native land." "I only say that we're too infatuated with mere brain-power; that, after all, isn't a vulgar fault. But I AM changed; a woman has to change a good deal to marry." "I hope you'll be very happy. You will at last--over here--see something of the inner life." Henrietta gave a little significant sigh. "That's the key to the mystery, I believe. I couldn't endure to be kept off. Now I've as good a right as any one!" she added with artless elation. Isabel was duly diverted, but there was a certain melancholy in her view. Henrietta, after all, had confessed herself human and feminine, Henrietta whom she had hitherto regarded as a light keen flame, a disembodied voice. It was a disappointment to find she had personal susceptibilities, that she was subject to common passions, and that her intimacy with Mr. Bantling had not been completely original. There was a want of originality in her marrying him--there was even a kind of stupidity; and for a moment, to Isabel's sense, the dreariness of the world took on a deeper tinge. A little later indeed she reflected that Mr. Bantling himself at least was original. But she didn't see how Henrietta could give up her country. She herself had relaxed her hold of it, but it had never been her country as it had been Henrietta's. She presently asked her if she had enjoyed her visit to Lady Pensil. "Oh yes," said Henrietta, "she didn't know what to make of me." "And was that very enjoyable?" "Very much so, because she's supposed to be a master mind. She thinks she knows everything; but she doesn't understand a woman of my modern type. It would be so much easier for her if I were only a little better or a little worse. She's so puzzled; I believe she thinks it's my duty to go and do something immoral. She thinks it's immoral that I should marry her brother; but, after all, that isn't immoral enough. And she'll never understand my mixture--never!" "She's not so intelligent as her brother then," said Isabel. "He appears to have understood." "Oh no, he hasn't!" cried Miss Stackpole with decision. "I really believe that's what he wants to marry me for--just to find out the mystery and the proportions of it. That's a fixed idea--a kind of fascination." "It's very good in you to humour it." "Oh well," said Henrietta, "I've something to find out too!" And Isabel saw that she had not renounced an allegiance, but planned an attack. She was at last about to grapple in earnest with England. Isabel also perceived, however, on the morrow, at the Paddington Station, where she found herself, at ten o'clock, in the company both of Miss Stackpole and Mr. Bantling, that the gentleman bore his perplexities lightly. If he had not found out everything he had found out at least the great point--that Miss Stackpole would not be wanting in initiative. It was evident that in the selection of a wife he had been on his guard against this deficiency. "Henrietta has told me, and I'm very glad," Isabel said as she gave him her hand. "I dare say you think it awfully odd," Mr. Bantling replied, resting on his neat umbrella. "Yes, I think it awfully odd." "You can't think it so awfully odd as I do. But I've always rather liked striking out a line," said Mr. Bantling serenely.

The scene between Madame Merle and Isabel in Chapter 52 is a very important one for understanding James' project. In the preface, he has declared that Isabel is made extraordinary by her perceptiveness. Yet, we have learned that she often does not see what is right in front of her, being willfully ignorant, and she often sees more than what is right in front of her, allowing her imagination to work on the material right in front of her. In this scene however, Isabel finally is victorious in understanding the situation and allowing herself to be seen as an all-knowing and seeing entity. Merle sees that Isabel knows what she is - she knows her true nature. However, Merle cannot resist taking her down a notch, proving to her that her vision is not so extraordinary after all, by telling her about Ralph's gift to her. It is as if Isabel is a "clear glass" that allows Merle to see herself as a monstrosity for the first time. The end of the novel seems haunted by the past. The so-called "ghost" of Ralph Touchett appears. Recall that Isabel had earlier thought that the house of Gardencourt might be haunted, and Ralph had joked that she might live to see the ghost. However, while Isabel had expected the ghost of European history to make its appearance in the house -- for she had associated European convention with haunted houses and Romances - now, this ghost has come to stand for the American experience in Europe. We might read this in terms of an understanding of Americans making their mark on the history of Europe, in line with the Old World vs. New World theme. Goodwood's forced kiss at the end of the novel and his speech to Isabel suggests that he thinks it is perfectly acceptable to begin an extramarital affair with her. Isabel however, fights against this possibility. Her running away from him suggests that she is willing to accept the consequences of her marriage to Osmond once and for all, and upholds the honor of her actions of marrying Osmond. She wants to uphold a conventional notion of duty. This is representative of Isabel's final moral action. We can also read the ending though as Isabel's weakness rather than her strength. Every time she has a scene with Caspar Goodwood, she has a very physical reaction to him. It is as if she is attracted to him physically but cannot accept this about herself. Goodwood thus seems to represent her unconscious desires from which she runs away.

analysis

Isabel's arrival at Gardencourt on this second occasion was even quieter than it had been on the first. Ralph Touchett kept but a small household, and to the new servants Mrs. Osmond was a stranger; so that instead of being conducted to her own apartment she was coldly shown into the drawing-room and left to wait while her name was carried up to her aunt. She waited a long time; Mrs. Touchett appeared in no hurry to come to her. She grew impatient at last; she grew nervous and scared--as scared as if the objects about her had begun to show for conscious things, watching her trouble with grotesque grimaces. The day was dark and cold; the dusk was thick in the corners of the wide brown rooms. The house was perfectly still--with a stillness that Isabel remembered; it had filled all the place for days before the death of her uncle. She left the drawing-room and wandered about--strolled into the library and along the gallery of pictures, where, in the deep silence, her footstep made an echo. Nothing was changed; she recognised everything she had seen years before; it might have been only yesterday she had stood there. She envied the security of valuable "pieces" which change by no hair's breadth, only grow in value, while their owners lose inch by inch youth, happiness, beauty; and she became aware that she was walking about as her aunt had done on the day she had come to see her in Albany. She was changed enough since then--that had been the beginning. It suddenly struck her that if her Aunt Lydia had not come that day in just that way and found her alone, everything might have been different. She might have had another life and she might have been a woman more blest. She stopped in the gallery in front of a small picture--a charming and precious Bonington--upon which her eyes rested a long time. But she was not looking at the picture; she was wondering whether if her aunt had not come that day in Albany she would have married Caspar Goodwood. Mrs. Touchett appeared at last, just after Isabel had returned to the big uninhabited drawing-room. She looked a good deal older, but her eye was as bright as ever and her head as erect; her thin lips seemed a repository of latent meanings. She wore a little grey dress of the most undecorated fashion, and Isabel wondered, as she had wondered the first time, if her remarkable kinswoman resembled more a queen-regent or the matron of a gaol. Her lips felt very thin indeed on Isabel's hot cheek. "I've kept you waiting because I've been sitting with Ralph," Mrs. Touchett said. "The nurse had gone to luncheon and I had taken her place. He has a man who's supposed to look after him, but the man's good for nothing; he's always looking out of the window--as if there were anything to see! I didn't wish to move, because Ralph seemed to be sleeping and I was afraid the sound would disturb him. I waited till the nurse came back. I remembered you knew the house." "I find I know it better even than I thought; I've been walking everywhere," Isabel answered. And then she asked if Ralph slept much. "He lies with his eyes closed; he doesn't move. But I'm not sure that it's always sleep." "Will he see me? Can he speak to me?" Mrs. Touchett declined the office of saying. "You can try him," was the limit of her extravagance. And then she offered to conduct Isabel to her room. "I thought they had taken you there; but it's not my house, it's Ralph's; and I don't know what they do. They must at least have taken your luggage; I don't suppose you've brought much. Not that I care, however. I believe they've given you the same room you had before; when Ralph heard you were coming he said you must have that one." "Did he say anything else?" "Ah, my dear, he doesn't chatter as he used!" cried Mrs. Touchett as she preceded her niece up the staircase. It was the same room, and something told Isabel it had not been slept in since she occupied it. Her luggage was there and was not voluminous; Mrs. Touchett sat down a moment with her eyes upon it. "Is there really no hope?" our young woman asked as she stood before her. "None whatever. There never has been. It has not been a successful life." "No--it has only been a beautiful one." Isabel found herself already contradicting her aunt; she was irritated by her dryness. "I don't know what you mean by that; there's no beauty without health. That is a very odd dress to travel in." Isabel glanced at her garment. "I left Rome at an hour's notice; I took the first that came." "Your sisters, in America, wished to know how you dress. That seemed to be their principal interest. I wasn't able to tell them--but they seemed to have the right idea: that you never wear anything less than black brocade." "They think I'm more brilliant than I am; I'm afraid to tell them the truth," said Isabel. "Lily wrote me you had dined with her." "She invited me four times, and I went once. After the second time she should have let me alone. The dinner was very good; it must have been expensive. Her husband has a very bad manner. Did I enjoy my visit to America? Why should I have enjoyed it? I didn't go for my pleasure." These were interesting items, but Mrs. Touchett soon left her niece, whom she was to meet in half an hour at the midday meal. For this repast the two ladies faced each other at an abbreviated table in the melancholy dining-room. Here, after a little, Isabel saw her aunt not to be so dry as she appeared, and her old pity for the poor woman's inexpressiveness, her want of regret, of disappointment, came back to her. Unmistakeably she would have found it a blessing to-day to be able to feel a defeat, a mistake, even a shame or two. She wondered if she were not even missing those enrichments of consciousness and privately trying--reaching out for some aftertaste of life, dregs of the banquet; the testimony of pain or the cold recreation of remorse. On the other hand perhaps she was afraid; if she should begin to know remorse at all it might take her too far. Isabel could perceive, however, how it had come over her dimly that she had failed of something, that she saw herself in the future as an old woman without memories. Her little sharp face looked tragical. She told her niece that Ralph had as yet not moved, but that he probably would be able to see her before dinner. And then in a moment she added that he had seen Lord Warburton the day before; an announcement which startled Isabel a little, as it seemed an intimation that this personage was in the neighbourhood and that an accident might bring them together. Such an accident would not be happy; she had not come to England to struggle again with Lord Warburton. She none the less presently said to her aunt that he had been very kind to Ralph; she had seen something of that in Rome. "He has something else to think of now," Mrs. Touchett returned. And she paused with a gaze like a gimlet. Isabel saw she meant something, and instantly guessed what she meant. But her reply concealed her guess; her heart beat faster and she wished to gain a moment. "Ah yes--the House of Lords and all that." "He's not thinking of the Lords; he's thinking of the ladies. At least he's thinking of one of them; he told Ralph he's engaged to be married." "Ah, to be married!" Isabel mildly exclaimed. "Unless he breaks it off. He seemed to think Ralph would like to know. Poor Ralph can't go to the wedding, though I believe it's to take place very soon. "And who's the young lady?" "A member of the aristocracy; Lady Flora, Lady Felicia--something of that sort." "I'm very glad," Isabel said. "It must be a sudden decision." "Sudden enough, I believe; a courtship of three weeks. It has only just been made public." "I'm very glad," Isabel repeated with a larger emphasis. She knew her aunt was watching her--looking for the signs of some imputed soreness, and the desire to prevent her companion from seeing anything of this kind enabled her to speak in the tone of quick satisfaction, the tone almost of relief. Mrs. Touchett of course followed the tradition that ladies, even married ones, regard the marriage of their old lovers as an offence to themselves. Isabel's first care therefore was to show that however that might be in general she was not offended now. But meanwhile, as I say, her heart beat faster; and if she sat for some moments thoughtful--she presently forgot Mrs. Touchett's observation--it was not because she had lost an admirer. Her imagination had traversed half Europe; it halted, panting, and even trembling a little, in the city of Rome. She figured herself announcing to her husband that Lord Warburton was to lead a bride to the altar, and she was of course not aware how extremely wan she must have looked while she made this intellectual effort. But at last she collected herself and said to her aunt: "He was sure to do it some time or other." Mrs. Touchett was silent; then she gave a sharp little shake of the head. "Ah, my dear, you're beyond me!" she cried suddenly. They went on with their luncheon in silence; Isabel felt as if she had heard of Lord Warburton's death. She had known him only as a suitor, and now that was all over. He was dead for poor Pansy; by Pansy he might have lived. A servant had been hovering about; at last Mrs. Touchett requested him to leave them alone. She had finished her meal; she sat with her hands folded on the edge of the table. "I should like to ask you three questions," she observed when the servant had gone. "Three are a great many." "I can't do with less; I've been thinking. They're all very good ones." "That's what I'm afraid of. The best questions are the worst," Isabel answered. Mrs. Touchett had pushed back her chair, and as her niece left the table and walked, rather consciously, to one of the deep windows, she felt herself followed by her eyes. "Have you ever been sorry you didn't marry Lord Warburton?" Mrs. Touchett enquired. Isabel shook her head slowly, but not heavily. "No, dear aunt." "Good. I ought to tell you that I propose to believe what you say." "Your believing me's an immense temptation," she declared, smiling still. "A temptation to lie? I don't recommend you to do that, for when I'm misinformed I'm as dangerous as a poisoned rat. I don't mean to crow over you." "It's my husband who doesn't get on with me," said Isabel. "I could have told him he wouldn't. I don't call that crowing over YOU," Mrs. Touchett added. "Do you still like Serena Merle?" she went on. "Not as I once did. But it doesn't matter, for she's going to America." "To America? She must have done something very bad." "Yes--very bad." "May I ask what it is?" "She made a convenience of me." "Ah," cried Mrs. Touchett, "so she did of me! She does of every one." "She'll make a convenience of America," said Isabel, smiling again and glad that her aunt's questions were over. It was not till the evening that she was able to see Ralph. He had been dozing all day; at least he had been lying unconscious. The doctor was there, but after a while went away--the local doctor, who had attended his father and whom Ralph liked. He came three or four times a day; he was deeply interested in his patient. Ralph had had Sir Matthew Hope, but he had got tired of this celebrated man, to whom he had asked his mother to send word he was now dead and was therefore without further need of medical advice. Mrs. Touchett had simply written to Sir Matthew that her son disliked him. On the day of Isabel's arrival Ralph gave no sign, as I have related, for many hours; but toward evening he raised himself and said he knew that she had come. How he knew was not apparent, inasmuch as for fear of exciting him no one had offered the information. Isabel came in and sat by his bed in the dim light; there was only a shaded candle in a corner of the room. She told the nurse she might go--she herself would sit with him for the rest of the evening. He had opened his eyes and recognised her, and had moved his hand, which lay helpless beside him, so that she might take it. But he was unable to speak; he closed his eyes again and remained perfectly still, only keeping her hand in his own. She sat with him a long time--till the nurse came back; but he gave no further sign. He might have passed away while she looked at him; he was already the figure and pattern of death. She had thought him far gone in Rome, and this was worse; there was but one change possible now. There was a strange tranquillity in his face; it was as still as the lid of a box. With this he was a mere lattice of bones; when he opened his eyes to greet her it was as if she were looking into immeasurable space. It was not till midnight that the nurse came back; but the hours, to Isabel, had not seemed long; it was exactly what she had come for. If she had come simply to wait she found ample occasion, for he lay three days in a kind of grateful silence. He recognised her and at moments seemed to wish to speak; but he found no voice. Then he closed his eyes again, as if he too were waiting for something--for something that certainly would come. He was so absolutely quiet that it seemed to her what was coming had already arrived; and yet she never lost the sense that they were still together. But they were not always together; there were other hours that she passed in wandering through the empty house and listening for a voice that was not poor Ralph's. She had a constant fear; she thought it possible her husband would write to her. But he remained silent, and she only got a letter from Florence and from the Countess Gemini. Ralph, however, spoke at last--on the evening of the third day. "I feel better to-night," he murmured, abruptly, in the soundless dimness of her vigil; "I think I can say something." She sank upon her knees beside his pillow; took his thin hand in her own; begged him not to make an effort--not to tire himself. His face was of necessity serious--it was incapable of the muscular play of a smile; but its owner apparently had not lost a perception of incongruities. "What does it matter if I'm tired when I've all eternity to rest? There's no harm in making an effort when it's the very last of all. Don't people always feel better just before the end? I've often heard of that; it's what I was waiting for. Ever since you've been here I thought it would come. I tried two or three times; I was afraid you'd get tired of sitting there." He spoke slowly, with painful breaks and long pauses; his voice seemed to come from a distance. When he ceased he lay with his face turned to Isabel and his large unwinking eyes open into her own. "It was very good of you to come," he went on. "I thought you would; but I wasn't sure." "I was not sure either till I came," said Isabel. "You've been like an angel beside my bed. You know they talk about the angel of death. It's the most beautiful of all. You've been like that; as if you were waiting for me." "I was not waiting for your death; I was waiting for--for this. This is not death, dear Ralph." "Not for you--no. There's nothing makes us feel so much alive as to see others die. That's the sensation of life--the sense that we remain. I've had it--even I. But now I'm of no use but to give it to others. With me it's all over." And then he paused. Isabel bowed her head further, till it rested on the two hands that were clasped upon his own. She couldn't see him now; but his far-away voice was close to her ear. "Isabel," he went on suddenly, "I wish it were over for you." She answered nothing; she had burst into sobs; she remained so, with her buried face. He lay silent, listening to her sobs; at last he gave a long groan. "Ah, what is it you have done for me?" "What is it you did for me?" she cried, her now extreme agitation half smothered by her attitude. She had lost all her shame, all wish to hide things. Now he must know; she wished him to know, for it brought them supremely together, and he was beyond the reach of pain. "You did something once--you know it. O Ralph, you've been everything! What have I done for you--what can I do to-day? I would die if you could live. But I don't wish you to live; I would die myself, not to lose you." Her voice was as broken as his own and full of tears and anguish. "You won't lose me--you'll keep me. Keep me in your heart; I shall be nearer to you than I've ever been. Dear Isabel, life is better; for in life there's love. Death is good--but there's no love." "I never thanked you--I never spoke--I never was what I should be!" Isabel went on. She felt a passionate need to cry out and accuse herself, to let her sorrow possess her. All her troubles, for the moment, became single and melted together into this present pain. "What must you have thought of me? Yet how could I know? I never knew, and I only know to-day because there are people less stupid than I." "Don't mind people," said Ralph. "I think I'm glad to leave people." She raised her head and her clasped hands; she seemed for a moment to pray to him. "Is it true--is it true?" she asked. "True that you've been stupid? Oh no," said Ralph with a sensible intention of wit. "That you made me rich--that all I have is yours?" He turned away his head, and for some time said nothing. Then at last: "Ah, don't speak of that--that was not happy." Slowly he moved his face toward her again, and they once more saw each other. "But for that--but for that--!" And he paused. "I believe I ruined you," he wailed. She was full of the sense that he was beyond the reach of pain; he seemed already so little of this world. But even if she had not had it she would still have spoken, for nothing mattered now but the only knowledge that was not pure anguish--the knowledge that they were looking at the truth together. "He married me for the money," she said. She wished to say everything; she was afraid he might die before she had done so. He gazed at her a little, and for the first time his fixed eyes lowered their lids. But he raised them in a moment, and then, "He was greatly in love with you," he answered. "Yes, he was in love with me. But he wouldn't have married me if I had been poor. I don't hurt you in saying that. How can I? I only want you to understand. I always tried to keep you from understanding; but that's all over." "I always understood," said Ralph. "I thought you did, and I didn't like it. But now I like it." "You don't hurt me--you make me very happy." And as Ralph said this there was an extraordinary gladness in his voice. She bent her head again, and pressed her lips to the back of his hand. "I always understood," he continued, "though it was so strange--so pitiful. You wanted to look at life for yourself--but you were not allowed; you were punished for your wish. You were ground in the very mill of the conventional!" "Oh yes, I've been punished," Isabel sobbed. He listened to her a little, and then continued: "Was he very bad about your coming?" "He made it very hard for me. But I don't care." "It is all over then between you?" "Oh no; I don't think anything's over." "Are you going back to him?" Ralph gasped. "I don't know--I can't tell. I shall stay here as long as I may. I don't want to think--I needn't think. I don't care for anything but you, and that's enough for the present. It will last a little yet. Here on my knees, with you dying in my arms, I'm happier than I have been for a long time. And I want you to be happy--not to think of anything sad; only to feel that I'm near you and I love you. Why should there be pain--? In such hours as this what have we to do with pain? That's not the deepest thing; there's something deeper." Ralph evidently found from moment to moment greater difficulty in speaking; he had to wait longer to collect himself. At first he appeared to make no response to these last words; he let a long time elapse. Then he murmured simply: "You must stay here." "I should like to stay--as long as seems right." "As seems right--as seems right?" He repeated her words. "Yes, you think a great deal about that." "Of course one must. You're very tired," said Isabel. "I'm very tired. You said just now that pain's not the deepest thing. No--no. But it's very deep. If I could stay--" "For me you'll always be here," she softly interrupted. It was easy to interrupt him. But he went on, after a moment: "It passes, after all; it's passing now. But love remains. I don't know why we should suffer so much. Perhaps I shall find out. There are many things in life. You're very young." "I feel very old," said Isabel. "You'll grow young again. That's how I see you. I don't believe--I don't believe--" But he stopped again; his strength failed him. She begged him to be quiet now. "We needn't speak to understand each other," she said. "I don't believe that such a generous mistake as yours can hurt you for more than a little." "Oh Ralph, I'm very happy now," she cried through her tears. "And remember this," he continued, "that if you've been hated you've also been loved. Ah but, Isabel--ADORED!" he just audibly and lingeringly breathed. "Oh my brother!" she cried with a movement of still deeper prostration.

Isabel's arrival in Gardencourt is as quiet as her first time there. She wonders to herself what would have happened to her if she had never met her aunt - would she have married Caspar Goodwood. Mrs. Touchett comes to greet Isabel and inform her of Ralph's condition. He is not doing well, and Mrs. Touchett states that he has not had a successful life. Isabel says that he has had a beautiful one. Mrs. Touchett asks Isabel three questions: has she ever regretted her refusal of Lord Warburton. Isabel says she has not. Are she and Madame Merle still friends. Isabel says she is not. What did Madame Merle do to her. Isabel replies that she made a convenience of her. Isabel waits by Ralph's bedside for three days before he is finally well enough to speak. When he finally sits up, he believes he is near his end. He says he was not sure she would come. He then asks what she has done for him, implying that she has acted in opposition to her husband in coming to see him. She responds by asking him the same thing: what is it that he did for her. Did he really make her a rich woman. He tells her that he thinks he ruined her. Isabel admits that Osmond married her for her money. Ralph tells Isabel that she wanted to look at life, but ended up ground into the mill of the conventional. Yet he still has hope that she will be young again

summary

Isabel's arrival at Gardencourt on this second occasion was even quieter than it had been on the first. Ralph Touchett kept but a small household, and to the new servants Mrs. Osmond was a stranger; so that instead of being conducted to her own apartment she was coldly shown into the drawing-room and left to wait while her name was carried up to her aunt. She waited a long time; Mrs. Touchett appeared in no hurry to come to her. She grew impatient at last; she grew nervous and scared--as scared as if the objects about her had begun to show for conscious things, watching her trouble with grotesque grimaces. The day was dark and cold; the dusk was thick in the corners of the wide brown rooms. The house was perfectly still--with a stillness that Isabel remembered; it had filled all the place for days before the death of her uncle. She left the drawing-room and wandered about--strolled into the library and along the gallery of pictures, where, in the deep silence, her footstep made an echo. Nothing was changed; she recognised everything she had seen years before; it might have been only yesterday she had stood there. She envied the security of valuable "pieces" which change by no hair's breadth, only grow in value, while their owners lose inch by inch youth, happiness, beauty; and she became aware that she was walking about as her aunt had done on the day she had come to see her in Albany. She was changed enough since then--that had been the beginning. It suddenly struck her that if her Aunt Lydia had not come that day in just that way and found her alone, everything might have been different. She might have had another life and she might have been a woman more blest. She stopped in the gallery in front of a small picture--a charming and precious Bonington--upon which her eyes rested a long time. But she was not looking at the picture; she was wondering whether if her aunt had not come that day in Albany she would have married Caspar Goodwood. Mrs. Touchett appeared at last, just after Isabel had returned to the big uninhabited drawing-room. She looked a good deal older, but her eye was as bright as ever and her head as erect; her thin lips seemed a repository of latent meanings. She wore a little grey dress of the most undecorated fashion, and Isabel wondered, as she had wondered the first time, if her remarkable kinswoman resembled more a queen-regent or the matron of a gaol. Her lips felt very thin indeed on Isabel's hot cheek. "I've kept you waiting because I've been sitting with Ralph," Mrs. Touchett said. "The nurse had gone to luncheon and I had taken her place. He has a man who's supposed to look after him, but the man's good for nothing; he's always looking out of the window--as if there were anything to see! I didn't wish to move, because Ralph seemed to be sleeping and I was afraid the sound would disturb him. I waited till the nurse came back. I remembered you knew the house." "I find I know it better even than I thought; I've been walking everywhere," Isabel answered. And then she asked if Ralph slept much. "He lies with his eyes closed; he doesn't move. But I'm not sure that it's always sleep." "Will he see me? Can he speak to me?" Mrs. Touchett declined the office of saying. "You can try him," was the limit of her extravagance. And then she offered to conduct Isabel to her room. "I thought they had taken you there; but it's not my house, it's Ralph's; and I don't know what they do. They must at least have taken your luggage; I don't suppose you've brought much. Not that I care, however. I believe they've given you the same room you had before; when Ralph heard you were coming he said you must have that one." "Did he say anything else?" "Ah, my dear, he doesn't chatter as he used!" cried Mrs. Touchett as she preceded her niece up the staircase. It was the same room, and something told Isabel it had not been slept in since she occupied it. Her luggage was there and was not voluminous; Mrs. Touchett sat down a moment with her eyes upon it. "Is there really no hope?" our young woman asked as she stood before her. "None whatever. There never has been. It has not been a successful life." "No--it has only been a beautiful one." Isabel found herself already contradicting her aunt; she was irritated by her dryness. "I don't know what you mean by that; there's no beauty without health. That is a very odd dress to travel in." Isabel glanced at her garment. "I left Rome at an hour's notice; I took the first that came." "Your sisters, in America, wished to know how you dress. That seemed to be their principal interest. I wasn't able to tell them--but they seemed to have the right idea: that you never wear anything less than black brocade." "They think I'm more brilliant than I am; I'm afraid to tell them the truth," said Isabel. "Lily wrote me you had dined with her." "She invited me four times, and I went once. After the second time she should have let me alone. The dinner was very good; it must have been expensive. Her husband has a very bad manner. Did I enjoy my visit to America? Why should I have enjoyed it? I didn't go for my pleasure." These were interesting items, but Mrs. Touchett soon left her niece, whom she was to meet in half an hour at the midday meal. For this repast the two ladies faced each other at an abbreviated table in the melancholy dining-room. Here, after a little, Isabel saw her aunt not to be so dry as she appeared, and her old pity for the poor woman's inexpressiveness, her want of regret, of disappointment, came back to her. Unmistakeably she would have found it a blessing to-day to be able to feel a defeat, a mistake, even a shame or two. She wondered if she were not even missing those enrichments of consciousness and privately trying--reaching out for some aftertaste of life, dregs of the banquet; the testimony of pain or the cold recreation of remorse. On the other hand perhaps she was afraid; if she should begin to know remorse at all it might take her too far. Isabel could perceive, however, how it had come over her dimly that she had failed of something, that she saw herself in the future as an old woman without memories. Her little sharp face looked tragical. She told her niece that Ralph had as yet not moved, but that he probably would be able to see her before dinner. And then in a moment she added that he had seen Lord Warburton the day before; an announcement which startled Isabel a little, as it seemed an intimation that this personage was in the neighbourhood and that an accident might bring them together. Such an accident would not be happy; she had not come to England to struggle again with Lord Warburton. She none the less presently said to her aunt that he had been very kind to Ralph; she had seen something of that in Rome. "He has something else to think of now," Mrs. Touchett returned. And she paused with a gaze like a gimlet. Isabel saw she meant something, and instantly guessed what she meant. But her reply concealed her guess; her heart beat faster and she wished to gain a moment. "Ah yes--the House of Lords and all that." "He's not thinking of the Lords; he's thinking of the ladies. At least he's thinking of one of them; he told Ralph he's engaged to be married." "Ah, to be married!" Isabel mildly exclaimed. "Unless he breaks it off. He seemed to think Ralph would like to know. Poor Ralph can't go to the wedding, though I believe it's to take place very soon. "And who's the young lady?" "A member of the aristocracy; Lady Flora, Lady Felicia--something of that sort." "I'm very glad," Isabel said. "It must be a sudden decision." "Sudden enough, I believe; a courtship of three weeks. It has only just been made public." "I'm very glad," Isabel repeated with a larger emphasis. She knew her aunt was watching her--looking for the signs of some imputed soreness, and the desire to prevent her companion from seeing anything of this kind enabled her to speak in the tone of quick satisfaction, the tone almost of relief. Mrs. Touchett of course followed the tradition that ladies, even married ones, regard the marriage of their old lovers as an offence to themselves. Isabel's first care therefore was to show that however that might be in general she was not offended now. But meanwhile, as I say, her heart beat faster; and if she sat for some moments thoughtful--she presently forgot Mrs. Touchett's observation--it was not because she had lost an admirer. Her imagination had traversed half Europe; it halted, panting, and even trembling a little, in the city of Rome. She figured herself announcing to her husband that Lord Warburton was to lead a bride to the altar, and she was of course not aware how extremely wan she must have looked while she made this intellectual effort. But at last she collected herself and said to her aunt: "He was sure to do it some time or other." Mrs. Touchett was silent; then she gave a sharp little shake of the head. "Ah, my dear, you're beyond me!" she cried suddenly. They went on with their luncheon in silence; Isabel felt as if she had heard of Lord Warburton's death. She had known him only as a suitor, and now that was all over. He was dead for poor Pansy; by Pansy he might have lived. A servant had been hovering about; at last Mrs. Touchett requested him to leave them alone. She had finished her meal; she sat with her hands folded on the edge of the table. "I should like to ask you three questions," she observed when the servant had gone. "Three are a great many." "I can't do with less; I've been thinking. They're all very good ones." "That's what I'm afraid of. The best questions are the worst," Isabel answered. Mrs. Touchett had pushed back her chair, and as her niece left the table and walked, rather consciously, to one of the deep windows, she felt herself followed by her eyes. "Have you ever been sorry you didn't marry Lord Warburton?" Mrs. Touchett enquired. Isabel shook her head slowly, but not heavily. "No, dear aunt." "Good. I ought to tell you that I propose to believe what you say." "Your believing me's an immense temptation," she declared, smiling still. "A temptation to lie? I don't recommend you to do that, for when I'm misinformed I'm as dangerous as a poisoned rat. I don't mean to crow over you." "It's my husband who doesn't get on with me," said Isabel. "I could have told him he wouldn't. I don't call that crowing over YOU," Mrs. Touchett added. "Do you still like Serena Merle?" she went on. "Not as I once did. But it doesn't matter, for she's going to America." "To America? She must have done something very bad." "Yes--very bad." "May I ask what it is?" "She made a convenience of me." "Ah," cried Mrs. Touchett, "so she did of me! She does of every one." "She'll make a convenience of America," said Isabel, smiling again and glad that her aunt's questions were over. It was not till the evening that she was able to see Ralph. He had been dozing all day; at least he had been lying unconscious. The doctor was there, but after a while went away--the local doctor, who had attended his father and whom Ralph liked. He came three or four times a day; he was deeply interested in his patient. Ralph had had Sir Matthew Hope, but he had got tired of this celebrated man, to whom he had asked his mother to send word he was now dead and was therefore without further need of medical advice. Mrs. Touchett had simply written to Sir Matthew that her son disliked him. On the day of Isabel's arrival Ralph gave no sign, as I have related, for many hours; but toward evening he raised himself and said he knew that she had come. How he knew was not apparent, inasmuch as for fear of exciting him no one had offered the information. Isabel came in and sat by his bed in the dim light; there was only a shaded candle in a corner of the room. She told the nurse she might go--she herself would sit with him for the rest of the evening. He had opened his eyes and recognised her, and had moved his hand, which lay helpless beside him, so that she might take it. But he was unable to speak; he closed his eyes again and remained perfectly still, only keeping her hand in his own. She sat with him a long time--till the nurse came back; but he gave no further sign. He might have passed away while she looked at him; he was already the figure and pattern of death. She had thought him far gone in Rome, and this was worse; there was but one change possible now. There was a strange tranquillity in his face; it was as still as the lid of a box. With this he was a mere lattice of bones; when he opened his eyes to greet her it was as if she were looking into immeasurable space. It was not till midnight that the nurse came back; but the hours, to Isabel, had not seemed long; it was exactly what she had come for. If she had come simply to wait she found ample occasion, for he lay three days in a kind of grateful silence. He recognised her and at moments seemed to wish to speak; but he found no voice. Then he closed his eyes again, as if he too were waiting for something--for something that certainly would come. He was so absolutely quiet that it seemed to her what was coming had already arrived; and yet she never lost the sense that they were still together. But they were not always together; there were other hours that she passed in wandering through the empty house and listening for a voice that was not poor Ralph's. She had a constant fear; she thought it possible her husband would write to her. But he remained silent, and she only got a letter from Florence and from the Countess Gemini. Ralph, however, spoke at last--on the evening of the third day. "I feel better to-night," he murmured, abruptly, in the soundless dimness of her vigil; "I think I can say something." She sank upon her knees beside his pillow; took his thin hand in her own; begged him not to make an effort--not to tire himself. His face was of necessity serious--it was incapable of the muscular play of a smile; but its owner apparently had not lost a perception of incongruities. "What does it matter if I'm tired when I've all eternity to rest? There's no harm in making an effort when it's the very last of all. Don't people always feel better just before the end? I've often heard of that; it's what I was waiting for. Ever since you've been here I thought it would come. I tried two or three times; I was afraid you'd get tired of sitting there." He spoke slowly, with painful breaks and long pauses; his voice seemed to come from a distance. When he ceased he lay with his face turned to Isabel and his large unwinking eyes open into her own. "It was very good of you to come," he went on. "I thought you would; but I wasn't sure." "I was not sure either till I came," said Isabel. "You've been like an angel beside my bed. You know they talk about the angel of death. It's the most beautiful of all. You've been like that; as if you were waiting for me." "I was not waiting for your death; I was waiting for--for this. This is not death, dear Ralph." "Not for you--no. There's nothing makes us feel so much alive as to see others die. That's the sensation of life--the sense that we remain. I've had it--even I. But now I'm of no use but to give it to others. With me it's all over." And then he paused. Isabel bowed her head further, till it rested on the two hands that were clasped upon his own. She couldn't see him now; but his far-away voice was close to her ear. "Isabel," he went on suddenly, "I wish it were over for you." She answered nothing; she had burst into sobs; she remained so, with her buried face. He lay silent, listening to her sobs; at last he gave a long groan. "Ah, what is it you have done for me?" "What is it you did for me?" she cried, her now extreme agitation half smothered by her attitude. She had lost all her shame, all wish to hide things. Now he must know; she wished him to know, for it brought them supremely together, and he was beyond the reach of pain. "You did something once--you know it. O Ralph, you've been everything! What have I done for you--what can I do to-day? I would die if you could live. But I don't wish you to live; I would die myself, not to lose you." Her voice was as broken as his own and full of tears and anguish. "You won't lose me--you'll keep me. Keep me in your heart; I shall be nearer to you than I've ever been. Dear Isabel, life is better; for in life there's love. Death is good--but there's no love." "I never thanked you--I never spoke--I never was what I should be!" Isabel went on. She felt a passionate need to cry out and accuse herself, to let her sorrow possess her. All her troubles, for the moment, became single and melted together into this present pain. "What must you have thought of me? Yet how could I know? I never knew, and I only know to-day because there are people less stupid than I." "Don't mind people," said Ralph. "I think I'm glad to leave people." She raised her head and her clasped hands; she seemed for a moment to pray to him. "Is it true--is it true?" she asked. "True that you've been stupid? Oh no," said Ralph with a sensible intention of wit. "That you made me rich--that all I have is yours?" He turned away his head, and for some time said nothing. Then at last: "Ah, don't speak of that--that was not happy." Slowly he moved his face toward her again, and they once more saw each other. "But for that--but for that--!" And he paused. "I believe I ruined you," he wailed. She was full of the sense that he was beyond the reach of pain; he seemed already so little of this world. But even if she had not had it she would still have spoken, for nothing mattered now but the only knowledge that was not pure anguish--the knowledge that they were looking at the truth together. "He married me for the money," she said. She wished to say everything; she was afraid he might die before she had done so. He gazed at her a little, and for the first time his fixed eyes lowered their lids. But he raised them in a moment, and then, "He was greatly in love with you," he answered. "Yes, he was in love with me. But he wouldn't have married me if I had been poor. I don't hurt you in saying that. How can I? I only want you to understand. I always tried to keep you from understanding; but that's all over." "I always understood," said Ralph. "I thought you did, and I didn't like it. But now I like it." "You don't hurt me--you make me very happy." And as Ralph said this there was an extraordinary gladness in his voice. She bent her head again, and pressed her lips to the back of his hand. "I always understood," he continued, "though it was so strange--so pitiful. You wanted to look at life for yourself--but you were not allowed; you were punished for your wish. You were ground in the very mill of the conventional!" "Oh yes, I've been punished," Isabel sobbed. He listened to her a little, and then continued: "Was he very bad about your coming?" "He made it very hard for me. But I don't care." "It is all over then between you?" "Oh no; I don't think anything's over." "Are you going back to him?" Ralph gasped. "I don't know--I can't tell. I shall stay here as long as I may. I don't want to think--I needn't think. I don't care for anything but you, and that's enough for the present. It will last a little yet. Here on my knees, with you dying in my arms, I'm happier than I have been for a long time. And I want you to be happy--not to think of anything sad; only to feel that I'm near you and I love you. Why should there be pain--? In such hours as this what have we to do with pain? That's not the deepest thing; there's something deeper." Ralph evidently found from moment to moment greater difficulty in speaking; he had to wait longer to collect himself. At first he appeared to make no response to these last words; he let a long time elapse. Then he murmured simply: "You must stay here." "I should like to stay--as long as seems right." "As seems right--as seems right?" He repeated her words. "Yes, you think a great deal about that." "Of course one must. You're very tired," said Isabel. "I'm very tired. You said just now that pain's not the deepest thing. No--no. But it's very deep. If I could stay--" "For me you'll always be here," she softly interrupted. It was easy to interrupt him. But he went on, after a moment: "It passes, after all; it's passing now. But love remains. I don't know why we should suffer so much. Perhaps I shall find out. There are many things in life. You're very young." "I feel very old," said Isabel. "You'll grow young again. That's how I see you. I don't believe--I don't believe--" But he stopped again; his strength failed him. She begged him to be quiet now. "We needn't speak to understand each other," she said. "I don't believe that such a generous mistake as yours can hurt you for more than a little." "Oh Ralph, I'm very happy now," she cried through her tears. "And remember this," he continued, "that if you've been hated you've also been loved. Ah but, Isabel--ADORED!" he just audibly and lingeringly breathed. "Oh my brother!" she cried with a movement of still deeper prostration.

The scene between Madame Merle and Isabel in Chapter 52 is a very important one for understanding James' project. In the preface, he has declared that Isabel is made extraordinary by her perceptiveness. Yet, we have learned that she often does not see what is right in front of her, being willfully ignorant, and she often sees more than what is right in front of her, allowing her imagination to work on the material right in front of her. In this scene however, Isabel finally is victorious in understanding the situation and allowing herself to be seen as an all-knowing and seeing entity. Merle sees that Isabel knows what she is - she knows her true nature. However, Merle cannot resist taking her down a notch, proving to her that her vision is not so extraordinary after all, by telling her about Ralph's gift to her. It is as if Isabel is a "clear glass" that allows Merle to see herself as a monstrosity for the first time. The end of the novel seems haunted by the past. The so-called "ghost" of Ralph Touchett appears. Recall that Isabel had earlier thought that the house of Gardencourt might be haunted, and Ralph had joked that she might live to see the ghost. However, while Isabel had expected the ghost of European history to make its appearance in the house -- for she had associated European convention with haunted houses and Romances - now, this ghost has come to stand for the American experience in Europe. We might read this in terms of an understanding of Americans making their mark on the history of Europe, in line with the Old World vs. New World theme. Goodwood's forced kiss at the end of the novel and his speech to Isabel suggests that he thinks it is perfectly acceptable to begin an extramarital affair with her. Isabel however, fights against this possibility. Her running away from him suggests that she is willing to accept the consequences of her marriage to Osmond once and for all, and upholds the honor of her actions of marrying Osmond. She wants to uphold a conventional notion of duty. This is representative of Isabel's final moral action. We can also read the ending though as Isabel's weakness rather than her strength. Every time she has a scene with Caspar Goodwood, she has a very physical reaction to him. It is as if she is attracted to him physically but cannot accept this about herself. Goodwood thus seems to represent her unconscious desires from which she runs away.

analysis

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 implements of the little feast had been disposed upon the lawn of an old English country-house, in what I should call the perfect middle of a splendid summer afternoon. Part of the afternoon had waned, but much of it was left, and what was left was of the finest and rarest quality. Real dusk would not arrive for many hours; but the flood of summer light had begun to ebb, the air had grown mellow, the shadows were long upon the smooth, dense turf. They lengthened slowly, however, and the scene expressed that sense of leisure still to come which is perhaps the chief source of one's enjoyment of such a scene at such an hour. From five o'clock to eight is on certain occasions a little eternity; but on such an occasion as this the interval could be only an eternity of pleasure. The persons concerned in it were taking their pleasure quietly, and they were not of the sex which is supposed to furnish the regular votaries of the ceremony I have mentioned. The shadows on the perfect lawn were straight and angular; they were the shadows of an old man sitting in a deep wicker-chair near the low table on which the tea had been served, and of two younger men strolling to and fro, in desultory talk, in front of him. The old man had his cup in his hand; it was an unusually large cup, of a different pattern from the rest of the set and painted in brilliant colours. He disposed of its contents with much circumspection, holding it for a long time close to his chin, with his face turned to the house. His companions had either finished their tea or were indifferent to their privilege; they smoked cigarettes as they continued to stroll. One of them, from time to time, as he passed, looked with a certain attention at the elder man, who, unconscious of observation, rested his eyes upon the rich red front of his dwelling. The house that rose beyond the lawn was a structure to repay such consideration and was the most characteristic object in the peculiarly English picture I have attempted to sketch. It stood upon a low hill, above the river--the river being the Thames at some forty miles from London. A long gabled front of red brick, with the complexion of which time and the weather had played all sorts of pictorial tricks, only, however, to improve and refine it, presented to the lawn its patches of ivy, its clustered chimneys, its windows smothered in creepers. The house had a name and a history; the old gentleman taking his tea would have been delighted to tell you these things: how it had been built under Edward the Sixth, had offered a night's hospitality to the great Elizabeth (whose august person had extended itself upon a huge, magnificent and terribly angular bed which still formed the principal honour of the sleeping apartments), had been a good deal bruised and defaced in Cromwell's wars, and then, under the Restoration, repaired and much enlarged; and how, finally, after having been remodelled and disfigured in the eighteenth century, it had passed into the careful keeping of a shrewd American banker, who had bought it originally because (owing to circumstances too complicated to set forth) it was offered at a great bargain: bought it with much grumbling at its ugliness, its antiquity, its incommodity, and who now, at the end of twenty years, had become conscious of a real aesthetic passion for it, so that he knew all its points and would tell you just where to stand to see them in combination and just the hour when the shadows of its various protuberances which fell so softly upon the warm, weary brickwork--were of the right measure. Besides this, as I have said, he could have counted off most of the successive owners and occupants, several of whom were known to general fame; doing so, however, with an undemonstrative conviction that the latest phase of its destiny was not the least honourable. The front of the house overlooking that portion of the lawn with which we are concerned was not the entrance-front; this was in quite another quarter. Privacy here reigned supreme, and the wide carpet of turf that covered the level hill-top seemed but the extension of a luxurious interior. The great still oaks and beeches flung down a shade as dense as that of velvet curtains; and the place was furnished, like a room, with cushioned seats, with rich-coloured rugs, with the books and papers that lay upon the grass. The river was at some distance; where the ground began to slope the lawn, properly speaking, ceased. But it was none the less a charming walk down to the water. The old gentleman at the tea-table, who had come from America thirty years before, had brought with him, at the top of his baggage, his American physiognomy; and he had not only brought it with him, but he had kept it in the best order, so that, if necessary, he might have taken it back to his own country with perfect confidence. At present, obviously, nevertheless, he was not likely to displace himself; his journeys were over and he was taking the rest that precedes the great rest. He had a narrow, clean-shaven face, with features evenly distributed and an expression of placid acuteness. It was evidently a face in which the range of representation was not large, so that the air of contented shrewdness was all the more of a merit. It seemed to tell that he had been successful in life, yet it seemed to tell also that his success had not been exclusive and invidious, but had had much of the inoffensiveness of failure. He had certainly had a great experience of men, but there was an almost rustic simplicity in the faint smile that played upon his lean, spacious cheek and lighted up his humorous eye as he at last slowly and carefully deposited his big tea-cup upon the table. He was neatly dressed, in well-brushed black; but a shawl was folded upon his knees, and his feet were encased in thick, embroidered slippers. A beautiful collie dog lay upon the grass near his chair, watching the master's face almost as tenderly as the master took in the still more magisterial physiognomy of the house; and a little bristling, bustling terrier bestowed a desultory attendance upon the other gentlemen. One of these was a remarkably well-made man of five-and-thirty, with a face as English as that of the old gentleman I have just sketched was something else; a noticeably handsome face, fresh-coloured, fair and frank, with firm, straight features, a lively grey eye and the rich adornment of a chestnut beard. This person had a certain fortunate, brilliant exceptional look--the air of a happy temperament fertilised by a high civilisation--which would have made almost any observer envy him at a venture. He was booted and spurred, as if he had dismounted from a long ride; he wore a white hat, which looked too large for him; he held his two hands behind him, and in one of them--a large, white, well-shaped fist--was crumpled a pair of soiled dog-skin gloves. His companion, measuring the length of the lawn beside him, was a person of quite a different pattern, who, although he might have excited grave curiosity, would not, like the other, have provoked you to wish yourself, almost blindly, in his place. Tall, lean, loosely and feebly put together, he had an ugly, sickly, witty, charming face, furnished, but by no means decorated, with a straggling moustache and whisker. He looked clever and ill--a combination by no means felicitous; and he wore a brown velvet jacket. He carried his hands in his pockets, and there was something in the way he did it that showed the habit was inveterate. His gait had a shambling, wandering quality; he was not very firm on his legs. As I have said, whenever he passed the old man in the chair he rested his eyes upon him; and at this moment, with their faces brought into relation, you would easily have seen they were father and son. The father caught his son's eye at last and gave him a mild, responsive smile. "I'm getting on very well," he said. "Have you drunk your tea?" asked the son. "Yes, and enjoyed it." "Shall I give you some more?" The old man considered, placidly. "Well, I guess I'll wait and see." He had, in speaking, the American tone. "Are you cold?" the son enquired. The father slowly rubbed his legs. "Well, I don't know. I can't tell till I feel." "Perhaps some one might feel for you," said the younger man, laughing. "Oh, I hope some one will always feel for me! Don't you feel for me, Lord Warburton?" "Oh yes, immensely," said the gentleman addressed as Lord Warburton, promptly. "I'm bound to say you look wonderfully comfortable." "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." "Yes, that's the bore of comfort," said Lord Warburton. "We only know when we're uncomfortable." "It strikes me we're rather particular," his companion remarked. "Oh yes, there's no doubt we're particular," Lord Warburton murmured. And then the three men remained silent a while; the two younger ones standing looking down at the other, who presently asked for more tea. "I should think you would be very unhappy with that shawl," Lord Warburton resumed while his companion filled the old man's cup again. "Oh no, he must have the shawl!" cried the gentleman in the velvet coat. "Don't put such ideas as that into his head." "It belongs to my wife," said the old man simply. "Oh, if it's for sentimental reasons--" And Lord Warburton made a gesture of apology. "I suppose I must give it to her when she comes," the old man went on. "You'll please to do nothing of the kind. You'll keep it to cover your poor old legs." "Well, you mustn't abuse my legs," said the old man. "I guess they are as good as yours." "Oh, you're perfectly free to abuse mine," his son replied, giving him his tea. "Well, we're two lame ducks; I don't think there's much difference." "I'm much obliged to you for calling me a duck. How's your tea?" "Well, it's rather hot." "That's intended to be a merit." "Ah, there's a great deal of merit," murmured the old man, kindly. "He's a very good nurse, Lord Warburton." "Isn't he a bit clumsy?" asked his lordship. "Oh no, he's not clumsy--considering that he's an invalid himself. He's a very good nurse--for a sick-nurse. I call him my sick-nurse because he's sick himself." "Oh, come, daddy!" the ugly young man exclaimed. "Well, you are; I wish you weren't. But I suppose you can't help it." "I might try: that's an idea," said the young man. "Were you ever sick, Lord Warburton?" his father asked. Lord Warburton considered a moment. "Yes, sir, once, in the Persian Gulf." "He's making light of you, daddy," said the other young man. "That's a sort of joke." "Well, there seem to be so many sorts now," daddy replied, serenely. "You don't look as if you had been sick, anyway, Lord Warburton." "He's sick of life; he was just telling me so; going on fearfully about it," said Lord Warburton's friend. "Is that true, sir?" asked the old man gravely. "If it is, your son gave me no consolation. He's a wretched fellow to talk to--a regular cynic. He doesn't seem to believe in anything." "That's another sort of joke," said the person accused of cynicism. "It's because his health is so poor," his father explained to Lord Warburton. "It affects his mind and colours his way of looking at things; he seems to feel as if he had never had a chance. But it's almost entirely theoretical, you know; it doesn't seem to affect his spirits. I've hardly ever seen him when he wasn't cheerful--about as he is at present. He often cheers me up." The young man so described looked at Lord Warburton and laughed. "Is it a glowing eulogy or an accusation of levity? Should you like me to carry out my theories, daddy?" "By Jove, we should see some queer things!" cried Lord Warburton. "I hope you haven't taken up that sort of tone," said the old man. "Warburton's tone is worse than mine; he pretends to be bored. I'm not in the least bored; I find life only too interesting." "Ah, too interesting; you shouldn't allow it to be that, you know!" "I'm never bored when I come here," said Lord Warburton. "One gets such uncommonly good talk." "Is that another sort of joke?" asked the old man. "You've no excuse for being bored anywhere. When I was your age I had never heard of such a thing." "You must have developed very late." "No, I developed very quick; that was just the reason. When I was twenty years old I was very highly developed indeed. I was working tooth and nail. You wouldn't be bored if you had something to do; but all you young men are too idle. You think too much of your pleasure. You're too fastidious, and too indolent, and too rich." "Oh, I say," cried Lord Warburton, "you're hardly the person to accuse a fellow-creature of being too rich!" "Do you mean because I'm a banker?" asked the old man. "Because of that, if you like; and because you have--haven't you?--such unlimited means." "He isn't very rich," the other young man mercifully pleaded. "He has given away an immense deal of money." "Well, I suppose it was his own," said Lord Warburton; "and in that case could there be a better proof of wealth? Let not a public benefactor talk of one's being too fond of pleasure." "Daddy's very fond of pleasure--of other people's." The old man shook his head. "I don't pretend to have contributed anything to the amusement of my contemporaries." "My dear father, you're too modest!" "That's a kind of joke, sir," said Lord Warburton. "You young men have too many jokes. When there are no jokes you've nothing left." "Fortunately there are always more jokes," the ugly young man remarked. "I don't believe it--I believe things are getting more serious. You young men will find that out." "The increasing seriousness of things, then that's the great opportunity of jokes." "They'll have to be grim jokes," said the old man. "I'm convinced there will be great changes, and not all for the better." "I quite agree with you, sir," Lord Warburton declared. "I'm very sure there will be great changes, and that all sorts of queer things will happen. That's why I find so much difficulty in applying your advice; you know you told me the other day that I ought to 'take hold' of something. One hesitates to take hold of a thing that may the next moment be knocked sky-high." "You ought to take hold of a pretty woman," said his companion. "He's trying hard to fall in love," he added, by way of explanation, to his father. "The pretty women themselves may be sent flying!" Lord Warburton exclaimed. "No, no, they'll be firm," the old man rejoined; "they'll not be affected by the social and political changes I just referred to." "You mean they won't be abolished? Very well, then, I'll lay hands on one as soon as possible and tie her round my neck as a life-preserver." "The ladies will save us," said the old man; "that is the best of them will--for I make a difference between them. Make up to a good one and marry her, and your life will become much more interesting." A momentary silence marked perhaps on the part of his auditors a sense of the magnanimity of this speech, for it was a secret neither for his son nor for his visitor that his own experiment in matrimony had not been a happy one. As he said, however, he made a difference; and these words may have been intended as a confession of personal error; though of course it was not in place for either of his companions to remark that apparently the lady of his choice had not been one of the best. "If I marry an interesting woman I shall be interested: is that what you say?" Lord Warburton asked. "I'm not at all keen about marrying--your son misrepresented me; but there's no knowing what an interesting woman might do with me." "I should like to see your idea of an interesting woman," said his friend. "My dear fellow, you can't see ideas--especially such highly ethereal ones as mine. If I could only see it myself--that would be a great step in advance." "Well, you may fall in love with whomsoever you please; but you mustn't fall in love with my niece," said the old man. 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!" "I say what I please," the old man returned with all his serenity. "I haven't the honour of knowing your niece," Lord Warburton said. "I think it's the first time I've heard of her." "She's a niece of my wife's; Mrs. Touchett brings her to England." Then young Mr. Touchett explained. "My mother, you know, has been spending the winter in America, and we're expecting her back. She writes that she has discovered a niece and that she has invited her to come out with her." "I see,--very kind of her," said Lord Warburton. Is the young lady interesting?" "We hardly know more about her than you; my mother has not gone into details. She chiefly communicates with us by means of telegrams, and her telegrams are rather inscrutable. They say women don't know how to write them, but my mother has thoroughly mastered the art of condensation. 'Tired America, hot weather awful, return England with niece, first steamer decent cabin.' That's the sort of message we get from her--that was the last that came. But there had been another before, which I think contained the first mention of the niece. 'Changed hotel, very bad, impudent clerk, address here. Taken sister's girl, died last year, go to Europe, two sisters, quite independent.' Over that my father and I have scarcely stopped puzzling; it seems to admit of so many interpretations." "There's one thing very clear in it," said the old man; "she has given the hotel-clerk a dressing." "I'm not sure even of that, since he has driven her from the field. We thought at first that the sister mentioned might be the sister of the clerk; but the subsequent mention of a niece seems to prove that the allusion is to one of my aunts. Then there was a question as to whose the two other sisters were; they are probably two of my late aunt's daughters. But who's 'quite independent,' and in what sense is the term used?--that point's not yet settled. Does the expression apply more particularly to the young lady my mother has adopted, or does it characterise her sisters equally?--and is it used in a moral or in a financial sense? Does it mean that they've been left well off, or that they wish to be under no obligations? or does it simply mean that they're fond of their own way?" "Whatever else it means, it's pretty sure to mean that," Mr. Touchett remarked. "You'll see for yourself," said Lord Warburton. "When does Mrs. Touchett arrive?" "We're quite in the dark; as soon as she can find a decent cabin. She may be waiting for it yet; on the other hand she may already have disembarked in England." "In that case she would probably have telegraphed to you." "She never telegraphs when you would expect it--only when you don't," said the old man. "She likes to drop on me suddenly; she thinks she'll find me doing something wrong. She has never done so yet, but she's not discouraged." "It's her share in the family trait, the independence she speaks of." Her son's appreciation of the matter was more favourable. "Whatever the high spirit of those young ladies may be, her own is a match for it. She likes to do everything for herself and has no belief in any one's power to help her. She thinks me of no more use than a postage-stamp without gum, and she would never forgive me if I should presume to go to Liverpool to meet her." "Will you at least let me know when your cousin arrives?" Lord Warburton asked. "Only on the condition I've mentioned--that you don't fall in love with her!" Mr. Touchett replied. "That strikes me as hard, don't you think me good enough?" "I think you too good--because I shouldn't like her to marry you. She hasn't come here to look for a husband, I hope; so many young ladies are doing that, as if there were no good ones at home. Then she's probably engaged; American girls are usually engaged, I believe. Moreover I'm not sure, after all, that you'd be a remarkable husband." "Very likely she's engaged; I've known a good many American girls, and they always were; but I could never see that it made any difference, upon my word! As for my being a good husband," Mr. Touchett's visitor pursued, "I'm not sure of that either. One can but try!" "Try as much as you please, but don't try on my niece," smiled the old man, whose opposition to the idea was broadly humorous. "Ah, well," said Lord Warburton with a humour broader still, "perhaps, after all, she's not worth trying on!"

Ralph Touchett, his father, and his friend Lord Warburton lounge on the spacious lawn of Gardencourt, the Touchett family's beautiful English estate, 40 miles from London. It's tea time. We meet the three gentlemen, all of whom are quite pleasant. Mr. Touchett, an American expatriate, still has the look of his countrymen about him. He seems like a kind, wise, and very smart old man. Lord Warburton is apparently the ideal English gentleman, and an aristocrat, to boot. Ralph, though less impressive than his noble friend, has a certain charm of his own. The two gently banter -- this is an old routine between friends. Both Touchetts are rather sickly. Mr. Touchett teases Ralph, saying that his son is his sick nurse. Lord Warburton teasingly says that Ralph is a cynic. Ralph says Lord Warburton is bored with life. Their banter is obviously familiar -- it's a routine they've been through before. Mr. Touchett is a bank owner, but Ralph says he is not very rich, since he gives away so much of his money. Mr. Touchett chides the young men for their lack of focus. He tells Lord Warburton to find an interesting woman and settle down with her. The conversation turns to current affairs. Apparently, Ralph's cousin, a previously unknown young American lady, is coming to visit from the states with his mother, Mrs. Touchett. The Touchetts are originally from America and have lived in England for 30 years. Mrs. Touchett, who seems like something of an odd character, insists on communicating with her menfolk through frugal, sparsely worded telegrams, but the message is never really clear. Ralph describes his mother as a woman who insists on her independence. They predict that the niece will be similar. We gather that Mrs. and Mr. Touchett don't have a particularly great relationship. The three men discuss the benefits of having a lady to love, and Mr. Touchett jokes that Lord Warburton had better not fall in love with his niece.

summary

While this exchange of pleasantries took place between the two Ralph Touchett wandered away a little, with his usual slouching gait, his hands in his pockets and his little rowdyish terrier at his heels. His face was turned toward the house, but his eyes were bent musingly on the lawn; so that he had been an object of observation to a person who had just made her appearance in the ample doorway for some moments before he perceived her. His attention was called to her by the conduct of his dog, who had suddenly darted forward with a little volley of shrill barks, in which the note of welcome, however, was more sensible than that of defiance. The person in question was a young lady, who seemed immediately to interpret the greeting of the small beast. He advanced with great rapidity and stood at her feet, looking up and barking hard; whereupon, without hesitation, she stooped and caught him in her hands, holding him face to face while he continued his quick chatter. His master now had had time to follow and to see that Bunchie's new friend was a tall girl in a black dress, who at first sight looked pretty. She was bareheaded, as if she were staying in the house--a fact which conveyed perplexity to the son of its master, conscious of that immunity from visitors which had for some time been rendered necessary by the latter's ill-health. Meantime the two other gentlemen had also taken note of the new-comer. "Dear me, who's that strange woman?" Mr. Touchett had asked. "Perhaps it's Mrs. Touchett's niece--the independent young lady," Lord Warburton suggested. "I think she must be, from the way she handles the dog." The collie, too, had now allowed his attention to be diverted, and he trotted toward the young lady in the doorway, slowly setting his tail in motion as he went. "But where's my wife then?" murmured the old man. "I suppose the young lady has left her somewhere: that's a part of the independence." The girl spoke to Ralph, smiling, while she still held up the terrier. "Is this your little dog, sir?" "He was mine a moment ago; but you've suddenly acquired a remarkable air of property in him." "Couldn't we share him?" asked the girl. "He's such a perfect little darling." Ralph looked at her a moment; she was unexpectedly pretty. "You may have him altogether," he then replied. The young lady seemed to have a great deal of confidence, both in herself and in others; but this abrupt generosity made her blush. "I ought to tell you that I'm probably your cousin," she brought out, putting down the dog. "And here's another!" she added quickly, as the collie came up. "Probably?" the young man exclaimed, laughing. "I supposed it was quite settled! Have you arrived with my mother?" "Yes, half an hour ago." "And has she deposited you and departed again?" "No, she went straight to her room, and she told me that, if I should see you, I was to say to you that you must come to her there at a quarter to seven." The young man looked at his watch. "Thank you very much; I shall be punctual." And then he looked at his cousin. "You're very welcome here. I'm delighted to see you." She was looking at everything, with an eye that denoted clear perception--at her companion, at the two dogs, at the two gentlemen under the trees, at the beautiful scene that surrounded her. "I've never seen anything so lovely as this place. I've been all over the house; it's too enchanting." "I'm sorry you should have been here so long without our knowing it." "Your mother told me that in England people arrived very quietly; so I thought it was all right. Is one of those gentlemen your father?" "Yes, the elder one--the one sitting down," said Ralph. The girl gave a laugh. "I don't suppose it's the other. Who's the other?" "He's a friend of ours--Lord Warburton." "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. She remained standing where they had met, making no offer to advance or to speak to Mr. Touchett, and while she lingered so near the threshold, slim and charming, her interlocutor wondered if she expected the old man to come and pay her his respects. American girls were used to a great deal of deference, and it had been intimated that this one had a high spirit. Indeed Ralph could see that in her face. "Won't you come and make acquaintance with my father?" he nevertheless ventured to ask. "He's old and infirm--he doesn't leave his chair." "Ah, poor man, I'm very sorry!" the girl exclaimed, immediately moving forward. "I got the impression from your mother that he was rather intensely active." Ralph Touchett was silent a moment. "She hasn't seen him for a year." "Well, he has a lovely place to sit. Come along, little hound." "It's a dear old place," said the young man, looking sidewise at his neighbour. "What's his name?" she asked, her attention having again reverted to the terrier. "My father's name?" "Yes," said the young lady with amusement; "but don't tell him I asked you." They had come by this time to where old Mr. Touchett was sitting, and he slowly got up from his chair to introduce himself. "My mother has arrived," said Ralph, "and this is Miss Archer." The old man placed his two hands on her shoulders, looked at her a moment with extreme benevolence and then gallantly kissed her. "It's a great pleasure to me to see you here; but I wish you had given us a chance to receive you." "Oh, we were received," said the girl. "There were about a dozen servants in the hall. And there was an old woman curtseying at the gate." "We can do better than that--if we have notice!" And the old man stood there smiling, rubbing his hands and slowly shaking his head at her. "But Mrs. Touchett doesn't like receptions." "She went straight to her room." "Yes--and locked herself in. She always does that. Well, I suppose I shall see her next week." And Mrs. Touchett's husband slowly resumed his former posture. "Before that," said Miss Archer. "She's coming down to dinner--at eight o'clock. Don't you forget a quarter to seven," she added, turning with a smile to Ralph. "What's to happen at a quarter to seven?" "I'm to see my mother," said Ralph. "Ah, happy boy!" the old man commented. "You must sit down--you must have some tea," he observed to his wife's niece. "They gave me some tea in my room the moment I got there," this young lady answered. "I'm sorry you're out of health," she added, resting her eyes upon her venerable host. "Oh, I'm an old man, my dear; it's time for me to be old. But I shall be the better for having you here." She had been looking all round her again--at the lawn, the great trees, the reedy, silvery Thames, the beautiful old house; and while engaged in this survey she had made room in it for her companions; a comprehensiveness of observation easily conceivable on the part of a young woman who was evidently both intelligent and excited. She had seated herself and had put away the little dog; her white hands, in her lap, were folded upon her black dress; her head was erect, her eye lighted, her flexible figure turned itself easily this way and that, in sympathy with the alertness with which she evidently caught impressions. Her impressions were numerous, and they were all reflected in a clear, still smile. "I've never seen anything so beautiful as this." "It's looking very well," said Mr. Touchett. "I know the way it strikes you. I've been through all that. But you're very beautiful yourself," he added with a politeness by no means crudely jocular and with the happy consciousness that his advanced age gave him the privilege of saying such things--even to young persons who might possibly take alarm at them. What degree of alarm this young person took need not be exactly measured; she instantly rose, however, with a blush which was not a refutation. "Oh yes, of course I'm lovely!" she returned with a quick laugh. "How old is your house? Is it Elizabethan?" "It's early Tudor," said Ralph Touchett. She turned toward him, watching his face. "Early Tudor? How very delightful! And I suppose there are a great many others." "There are many much better ones." "Don't say that, my son!" the old man protested. "There's nothing better than this." "I've got a very good one; I think in some respects it's rather better," said Lord Warburton, who as yet had not spoken, but who had kept an attentive eye upon Miss Archer. He slightly inclined himself, smiling; he had an excellent manner with women. The girl appreciated it in an instant; she had not forgotten that this was Lord Warburton. "I should like very much to show it to you," he added. "Don't believe him," cried the old man; "don't look at it! It's a wretched old barrack--not to be compared with this." "I don't know--I can't judge," said the girl, smiling at Lord Warburton. In this discussion Ralph Touchett took no interest whatever; he stood with his hands in his pockets, looking greatly as if he should like to renew his conversation with his new-found cousin. "Are you very fond of dogs?" he enquired by way of beginning. He seemed to recognise that it was an awkward beginning for a clever man. "Very fond of them indeed." "You must keep the terrier, you know," he went on, still awkwardly. "I'll keep him while I'm here, with pleasure." "That will be for a long time, I hope." "You're very kind. I hardly know. My aunt must settle that." "I'll settle it with her--at a quarter to seven." And Ralph looked at his watch again. "I'm glad to be here at all," said the girl. "I don't believe you allow things to be settled for you." "Oh yes; if they're settled as I like them." "I shall settle this as I like it," said Ralph. "It's most unaccountable that we should never have known you." "I was there--you had only to come and see me." "There? Where do you mean?" "In the United States: in New York and Albany and other American places." "I've been there--all over, but I never saw you. I can't make it out." Miss Archer just hesitated. "It was because there had been some disagreement between your mother and my father, after my mother's death, which took place when I was a child. In consequence of it we never expected to see you." "Ah, but I don't embrace all my mother's quarrels--heaven forbid!" the young man cried. "You've lately lost your father?" he went on more gravely. "Yes; more than a year ago. After that my aunt was very kind to me; she came to see me and proposed that I should come with her to Europe." "I see," said Ralph. "She has adopted you." "Adopted me?" The girl stared, and her blush came back to her, together with a momentary look of pain which gave her interlocutor some alarm. He had underestimated the effect of his words. Lord Warburton, who appeared constantly desirous of a nearer view of Miss Archer, strolled toward the two cousins at the moment, and as he did so she rested her wider eyes on him. "Oh no; she has not adopted me. I'm not a candidate for adoption." "I beg a thousand pardons," Ralph murmured. "I meant--I meant--" He hardly knew what he meant. "You meant she has taken me up. Yes; she likes to take people up. She has been very kind to me; but," she added with a certain visible eagerness of desire to be explicit, "I'm very fond of my liberty." "Are you talking about Mrs. Touchett?" the old man called out from his chair. "Come here, my dear, and tell me about her. I'm always thankful for information." The girl hesitated again, smiling. "She's really very benevolent," she answered; after which she went over to her uncle, whose mirth was excited by her words. Lord Warburton was left standing with Ralph Touchett, to whom in a moment he said: "You wished a while ago to see my idea of an interesting woman. There it is!"

Ralph's little dog, Bunchie, runs toward the house, and Ralph sees a beautiful young woman approaching. We assume, as he does, that this is the independent young cousin. Ralph and his cousin, Isabel Archer, get off to a friendly start. Isabel tells Ralph that he is to go to his mother's chambers at a quarter to seven. Mrs. Touchett has locked herself in her room, as is her custom. When Isabel does not take it upon herself to greet Mr. Touchett, Ralph invites her to come and meet him. Though her aunt had led her to believe that her uncle was quite active, recently his health has declined drastically. Isabel meets Mr. Touchett and Lord Warburton. All three gentlemen are quite interested in her, in their different ways. Ralph innocently comments that Mrs. Touchett has "adopted" Isabel. She seems offended by this statement and clarifies that her liberty is very important to her. Returning to their pre-Isabel conversation, Lord Warburton declares that she is his idea of an interesting woman.

summary

Mrs. Touchett was certainly a person of many oddities, of which her behaviour on returning to her husband's house after many months was a noticeable specimen. 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. That hard fineness came out in her deportment during the first hours of her return from America, under circumstances in which it might have seemed that her first act would have been to exchange greetings with her husband and son. Mrs. Touchett, for reasons which she deemed excellent, always retired on such occasions into impenetrable seclusion, postponing the more sentimental ceremony until she had repaired the disorder of dress with a completeness which had the less reason to be of high importance as neither beauty nor vanity were concerned in it. She was a plain-faced old woman, without graces and without any great elegance, but with an extreme respect for her own motives. She was usually prepared to explain these--when the explanation was asked as a favour; and in such a case they proved totally different from those that had been attributed to her. She was virtually separated from her husband, but she appeared to perceive nothing irregular in the situation. It had become clear, at an early stage of their community, that they should never desire the same thing at the same moment, and this appearance had prompted her to rescue disagreement from the vulgar realm of accident. She did what she could to erect it into a law--a much more edifying aspect of it--by going to live in Florence, where she bought a house and established herself; and by leaving her husband to take care of the English branch of his bank. This arrangement greatly pleased her; it was so felicitously definite. It struck her husband in the same light, in a foggy square in London, where it was at times the most definite fact he discerned; but he would have preferred that such unnatural things should have a greater vagueness. To agree to disagree had cost him an effort; he was ready to agree to almost anything but that, and saw no reason why either assent or dissent should be so terribly consistent. Mrs. Touchett indulged in no regrets nor speculations, and usually came once a year to spend a month with her husband, a period during which she apparently took pains to convince him that she had adopted the right system. 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 maid-servants; 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. At fixed intervals she paid a visit to her own country; but this last had been longer than any of its predecessors. She had taken up her niece--there was little doubt of that. One wet afternoon, some four months earlier than the occurrence lately narrated, this young lady had been seated alone with a book. To say she was so occupied is to say that her solitude did not press upon her; for her love of knowledge had a fertilising quality and her imagination was strong. There was at this time, however, a want of fresh taste in her situation which the arrival of an unexpected visitor did much to correct. The visitor had not been announced; the girl heard her at last walking about the adjoining room. It was in an old house at Albany, a large, square, double house, with a notice of sale in the windows of one of the lower apartments. There were two entrances, one of which had long been out of use but had never been removed. They were exactly alike--large white doors, with an arched frame and wide side-lights, perched upon little "stoops" of red stone, which descended sidewise to the brick pavement of the street. The two houses together formed a single dwelling, the party-wall having been removed and the rooms placed in communication. These rooms, above-stairs, were extremely numerous, and were painted all over exactly alike, in a yellowish white which had grown sallow with time. On the third floor there was a sort of arched passage, connecting the two sides of the house, which Isabel and her sisters used in their childhood to call the tunnel and which, though it was short and well lighted, always seemed to the girl to be strange and lonely, especially on winter afternoons. She had been in the house, at different periods, as a child; in those days her grandmother lived there. Then there had been an absence of ten years, followed by a return to Albany before her father's death. Her grandmother, old Mrs. Archer, had exercised, chiefly within the limits of the family, a large hospitality in the early period, and the little girls often spent weeks under her roof--weeks of which Isabel had the happiest memory. The manner of life was different from that of her own home--larger, more plentiful, practically more festal; the discipline of the nursery was delightfully vague and the opportunity of listening to the conversation of one's elders (which with Isabel was a highly-valued pleasure) almost unbounded. There was a constant coming and going; her grandmother's sons and daughters and their children appeared to be in the enjoyment of standing invitations to arrive and remain, so that the house offered to a certain extent the appearance of a bustling provincial inn kept by a gentle old landlady who sighed a great deal and never presented a bill. Isabel of course knew nothing about bills; but even as a child she thought her grandmother's home romantic. There was a covered piazza behind it, furnished with a swing which was a source of tremulous interest; and beyond this was a long garden, sloping down to the stable and containing peach-trees of barely credible familiarity. Isabel had stayed with her grandmother at various seasons, but somehow all her visits had a flavour of peaches. On the other side, across the street, was an old house that was called the Dutch House--a peculiar structure dating from the earliest colonial time, composed of bricks that had been painted yellow, crowned with a gable that was pointed out to strangers, defended by a rickety wooden paling and standing sidewise to the street. It was occupied by a primary school for children of both sexes, kept or rather let go, by a demonstrative lady of whom Isabel's chief recollection was that her hair was fastened with strange bedroomy combs at the temples and that she was the widow of some one of consequence. The little girl had been offered the opportunity of laying a foundation of knowledge in this establishment; but having spent a single day in it, she had protested against its laws and had been allowed to stay at home, where, in the September days, when the windows of the Dutch House were open, she used to hear the hum of childish voices repeating the multiplication table--an incident in which the elation of liberty and the pain of exclusion were indistinguishably mingled. The foundation of her knowledge was really laid in the idleness of her grandmother's house, where, as most of the other inmates were not reading people, she had uncontrolled use of a library full of books with frontispieces, which she used to climb upon a chair to take down. When she had found one to her taste--she was guided in the selection chiefly by the frontispiece--she carried it into a mysterious apartment which lay beyond the library and which was called, traditionally, no one knew why, the office. Whose office it had been and at what period it had flourished, she never learned; it was enough for her that it contained an echo and a pleasant musty smell and that it was a chamber of disgrace for old pieces of furniture whose infirmities were not always apparent (so that the disgrace seemed unmerited and rendered them victims of injustice) and with which, in the manner of children, she had established relations almost human, certainly dramatic. There was an old haircloth sofa in especial, to which she had confided a hundred childish sorrows. The place owed much of its mysterious melancholy to the fact that it was properly entered from the second door of the house, the door that had been condemned, and that it was secured by bolts which a particularly slender little girl found it impossible to slide. She knew that this silent, motionless portal opened into the street; if the sidelights had not been filled with green paper she might have looked out upon the little brown stoop and the well-worn brick pavement. But she had no wish to look out, for this would have interfered with her theory that there was a strange, unseen place on the other side--a place which became to the child's imagination, according to its different moods, a region of delight or of terror. It was in the "office" still that Isabel was sitting on that melancholy afternoon of early spring which I have just mentioned. At this time she might have had the whole house to choose from, and the room she had selected was the most depressed of its scenes. She had never opened the bolted door nor removed the green paper (renewed by other hands) from its sidelights; she had never assured herself that the vulgar street lay beyond. A crude, cold rain fell heavily; the spring-time was indeed an appeal--and it seemed a cynical, insincere appeal--to patience. Isabel, however, gave as little heed as possible to cosmic treacheries; she kept her eyes on her book and tried to fix her mind. It had lately occurred to her that her mind was a good deal of a vagabond, and she had spent much ingenuity in training it to a military step and teaching it to advance, to halt, to retreat, to perform even more complicated manoeuvres, at the word of command. Just now she had given it marching orders and it had been trudging over the sandy plains of a history of German Thought. Suddenly she became aware of a step very different from her own intellectual pace; she listened a little and perceived that some one was moving in the library, which communicated with the office. It struck her first as the step of a person from whom she was looking for a visit, then almost immediately announced itself as the tread of a woman and a stranger--her possible visitor being neither. It had an inquisitive, experimental quality which suggested that it would not stop short of the threshold of the office; and in fact the doorway of this apartment was presently occupied by a lady who paused there and looked very hard at our heroine. She was a plain, elderly woman, dressed in a comprehensive waterproof mantle; she had a face with a good deal of rather violent point. "Oh," she began, "is that where you usually sit?" She looked about at the heterogeneous chairs and tables. "Not when I have visitors," said Isabel, getting up to receive the intruder. She directed their course back to the library while the visitor continued to look about her. "You seem to have plenty of other rooms; they're in rather better condition. But everything's immensely worn." "Have you come to look at the house?" Isabel asked. "The servant will show it to you." "Send her away; I don't want to buy it. She has probably gone to look for you and is wandering about upstairs; she didn't seem at all intelligent. You had better tell her it's no matter." And then, since the girl stood there hesitating and wondering, this unexpected critic said to her abruptly: "I suppose you're one of the daughters?" Isabel thought she had very strange manners. "It depends upon whose daughters you mean." "The late Mr. Archer's--and my poor sister's." "Ah," said Isabel slowly, "you must be our crazy Aunt Lydia!" "Is that what your father told you to call me? I'm your Aunt Lydia, but I'm not at all crazy: I haven't a delusion! And which of the daughters are you?" "I'm the youngest of the three, and my name's Isabel." "Yes; the others are Lilian and Edith. And are you the prettiest?" "I haven't the least idea," said the girl. "I think you must be." And in this way the aunt and the niece made friends. The aunt had quarrelled years before with her brother-in-law, after the death of her sister, taking him to task for the manner in which he brought up his three girls. Being a high-tempered man he had requested her to mind her own business, and she had taken him at his word. For many years she held no communication with him and after his death had addressed not a word to his daughters, who had been bred in that disrespectful view of her which we have just seen Isabel betray. Mrs. Touchett's behaviour was, as usual, perfectly deliberate. She intended to go to America to look after her investments (with which her husband, in spite of his great financial position, had nothing to do) and would take advantage of this opportunity to enquire into the condition of her nieces. There was no need of writing, for she should attach no importance to any account of them she should elicit by letter; she believed, always, in seeing for one's self. Isabel found, however, that she knew a good deal about them, and knew about the marriage of the two elder girls; knew that their poor father had left very little money, but that the house in Albany, which had passed into his hands, was to be sold for their benefit; knew, finally, that Edmund Ludlow, Lilian's husband, had taken upon himself to attend to this matter, in consideration of which the young couple, who had come to Albany during Mr. Archer's illness, were remaining there for the present and, as well as Isabel herself, occupying the old place. "How much money do you expect for it?" Mrs. Touchett asked of her companion, who had brought her to sit in the front parlour, which she had inspected without enthusiasm. "I haven't the least idea," said the girl. "That's the second time you have said that to me," her aunt rejoined. "And yet you don't look at all stupid." "I'm not stupid; but I don't know anything about money." "Yes, that's the way you were brought up--as if you were to inherit a million. What have you in point of fact inherited?" "I really can't tell you. You must ask Edmund and Lilian; they'll be back in half an hour." "In Florence we should call it a very bad house," said Mrs. Touchett; "but here, I dare say, it will bring a high price. It ought to make a considerable sum for each of you. In addition to that you must have something else; it's most extraordinary your not knowing. The position's of value, and they'll probably pull it down and make a row of shops. I wonder you don't do that yourself; you might let the shops to great advantage." Isabel stared; the idea of letting shops was new to her. "I hope they won't pull it down," she said; "I'm extremely fond of it." "I don't see what makes you fond of it; your father died here." "Yes; but I don't dislike it for that," the girl rather strangely returned. "I like places in which things have happened--even if they're sad things. A great many people have died here; the place has been full of life." "Is that what you call being full of life?" "I mean full of experience--of people's feelings and sorrows. And not of their sorrows only, for I've been very happy here as a child." "You should go to Florence if you like houses in which things have happened--especially deaths. I live in an old palace in which three people have been murdered; three that were known and I don't know how many more besides." "In an old palace?" Isabel repeated. "Yes, my dear; a very different affair from this. This is very bourgeois." Isabel felt some emotion, for she had always thought highly of her grandmother's house. But the emotion was of a kind which led her to say: "I should like very much to go to Florence." "Well, if you'll be very good, and do everything I tell you I'll take you there," Mrs. Touchett declared. Our young woman's emotion deepened; she flushed a little and smiled at her aunt in silence. "Do everything you tell me? I don't think I can promise that." "No, you don't look like a person of that sort. You're fond of your own way; but it's not for me to blame you." "And yet, to go to Florence," the girl exclaimed in a moment, "I'd promise almost anything!" Edmund and Lilian were slow to return, and Mrs. Touchett had an hour's uninterrupted talk with her niece, who found her a strange and interesting figure: a figure essentially--almost the first she had ever met. She was as eccentric as Isabel had always supposed; and hitherto, whenever the girl had heard people described as eccentric, she had thought of them as offensive or alarming. The term had always suggested to her something grotesque and even sinister. But her aunt made it a matter of high but easy irony, or comedy, and led her to ask herself if the common tone, which was all she had known, had ever been as interesting. No one certainly had on any occasion so held her as this little thin-lipped, bright-eyed, foreign-looking woman, who retrieved an insignificant appearance by a distinguished manner and, sitting there in a well-worn waterproof, talked with striking familiarity of the courts of Europe. There was nothing flighty about Mrs. Touchett, but she recognised no social superiors, and, judging the great ones of the earth in a way that spoke of this, enjoyed the consciousness of making an impression on a candid and susceptible mind. Isabel at first had answered a good many questions, and it was from her answers apparently that Mrs. Touchett derived a high opinion of her intelligence. But after this she had asked a good many, and her aunt's answers, whatever turn they took, struck her as food for deep reflexion. Mrs. Touchett waited for the return of her other niece as long as she thought reasonable, but as at six o'clock Mrs. Ludlow had not come in she prepared to take her departure. "Your sister must be a great gossip. Is she accustomed to staying out so many hours?" "You've been out almost as long as she," Isabel replied; "she can have left the house but a short time before you came in." Mrs. Touchett looked at the girl without resentment; she appeared to enjoy a bold retort and to be disposed to be gracious. "Perhaps she hasn't had so good an excuse as I. Tell her at any rate that she must come and see me this evening at that horrid hotel. She may bring her husband if she likes, but she needn't bring you. I shall see plenty of you later."

Mrs. Touchett is a rather eccentric lady, and insists on things just as she likes them. For this reason, she keeps a house in Florence where she resides, while Mr. Touchett stays in England at Gardencourt. Now that we've met our heroine, we get her back-story. Mrs. Touchett "discovered" Isabel at her deceased grandmother's house in Albany, New York, where she spent most of her childhood. The house is next to a school, which a younger Isabel elected not to attend. She read a lot of books on her own instead. We begin to see that Isabel is as independent as her aunt, even as a child. Isabel is sitting in the "office," a kind of quiet, informal room, when Mrs. Touchett unexpectedly arrives. She recognizes her as "crazy Aunt Lydia," whom she'd heard of from her late father. Mrs. Touchett intrigues Isabel, and Isabel interests Mrs. Touchett as well. The two ladies talk for about an hour, waiting for Isabel's sister and brother-in-law, Lilian and Edmund, to return. Mrs. Touchett offers Isabel the chance to go to Florence. Isabel is excited by the idea, but cannot promise to do everything Mrs. Touchett asks her to do. Mrs. Touchett tells Isabel to ask Lilian to meet her at her hotel.

summary

Mrs. Ludlow was the eldest of the three sisters, and was usually thought the most sensible; the classification being in general that Lilian was the practical one, Edith the beauty and Isabel the "intellectual" superior. Mrs. Keyes, the second of the group, was the wife of an officer of the United States Engineers, and as our history is not further concerned with her it will suffice that she was indeed very pretty and that she formed the ornament of those various military stations, chiefly in the unfashionable West, to which, to her deep chagrin, her husband was successively relegated. Lilian had married a New York lawyer, a young man with a loud voice and an enthusiasm for his profession; the match was not brilliant, any more than Edith's, but Lilian had occasionally been spoken of as a young woman who might be thankful to marry at all--she was so much plainer than her sisters. She was, however, very happy, and now, as the mother of two peremptory little boys and the mistress of a wedge of brown stone violently driven into Fifty-third Street, seemed to exult in her condition as in a bold escape. She was short and solid, and her claim to figure was questioned, but she was conceded presence, though not majesty; she had moreover, as people said, improved since her marriage, and the two things in life of which she was most distinctly conscious were her husband's force in argument and her sister Isabel's originality. "I've never kept up with Isabel--it would have taken all my time," she had often remarked; in spite of which, however, she held her rather wistfully in sight; watching her as a motherly spaniel might watch a free greyhound. "I want to see her safely married--that's what I want to see," she frequently noted to her husband. "Well, I must say I should have no particular desire to marry her," Edmund Ludlow was accustomed to answer in an extremely audible tone. "I know you say that for argument; you always take the opposite ground. I don't see what you've against her except that she's so original." "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." "That's just what I'm afraid she'll do!" cried Lilian, who thought Isabel capable of anything. She listened with great interest to the girl's account of Mrs. Touchett's appearance and in the evening prepared to comply with their aunt's commands. Of what Isabel then said no report has remained, but her sister's words had doubtless prompted a word spoken to her husband as the two were making ready for their visit. "I do hope immensely she'll do something handsome for Isabel; she has evidently taken a great fancy to her." "What is it you wish her to do?" Edmund Ludlow asked. "Make her a big present?" "No indeed; nothing of the sort. But take an interest in her--sympathise with her. She's evidently just the sort of person to appreciate her. She has lived so much in foreign society; she told Isabel all about it. You know you've always thought Isabel rather foreign." "You want her to give her a little foreign sympathy, eh? Don't you think she gets enough at home?" "Well, she ought to go abroad," said Mrs. Ludlow. "She's just the person to go abroad." "And you want the old lady to take her, is that it?" "She has offered to take her--she's dying to have Isabel go. But what I want her to do when she gets her there is to give her all the advantages. I'm sure all we've got to do," said Mrs. Ludlow, "is to give her a chance." "A chance for what?" "A chance to develop." "Oh Moses!" Edmund Ludlow exclaimed. "I hope she isn't going to develop any more!" "If I were not sure you only said that for argument I should feel very badly," his wife replied. "But you know you love her." "Do you know I love you?" the young man said, jocosely, to Isabel a little later, while he brushed his hat. "I'm sure I don't care whether you do or not!" exclaimed the girl; whose voice and smile, however, were less haughty than her words. "Oh, she feels so grand since Mrs. Touchett's visit," said her sister. But Isabel challenged this assertion with a good deal of seriousness. "You must not say that, Lily. I don't feel grand at all." "I'm sure there's no harm," said the conciliatory Lily. "Ah, but there's nothing in Mrs. Touchett's visit to make one feel grand." "Oh," exclaimed Ludlow, "she's grander than ever!" "Whenever I feel grand," said the girl, "it will be for a better reason." Whether she felt grand or no, she at any rate felt different, as if something had happened to her. Left to herself for the evening she sat a while under the lamp, her hands empty, her usual avocations unheeded. Then she rose and moved about the room, and from one room to another, preferring the places where the vague lamplight expired. She was restless and even agitated; at moments she trembled a little. The importance of what had happened was out of proportion to its appearance; there had really been a change in her life. What it would bring with it was as yet extremely indefinite; but Isabel was in a situation that gave a value to any change. She had a desire to leave the past behind her and, as she said to herself, to begin afresh. This desire indeed was not a birth of the present occasion; it was as familiar as the sound of the rain upon the window and it had led to her beginning afresh a great many times. She closed her eyes as she sat in one of the dusky corners of the quiet parlour; 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. At present, with her sense that the note of change had been struck, came gradually a host of images of the things she was leaving behind her. The years and hours of her life came back to her, and for a long time, in a stillness broken only by the ticking of the big bronze clock, she passed them in review. It had been a very happy life and she had been a very fortunate person--this was the truth that seemed to emerge most vividly. She had had the best of everything, and in a world in which the circumstances of so many people made them unenviable it was an advantage never to have known anything particularly unpleasant. It appeared to Isabel that the unpleasant had been even too absent from her knowledge, for she had gathered from her acquaintance with literature that it was often a source of interest and even of instruction. Her father had kept it away from her--her handsome, much loved father, who always had such an aversion to it. It was a great felicity to have been his daughter; Isabel rose even to pride in her parentage. Since his death she had seemed to see him as turning his braver side to his children and as not having managed to ignore the ugly quite so much in practice as in aspiration. But this only made her tenderness for him greater; it was scarcely even painful to have to suppose him too generous, too good-natured, too indifferent to sordid considerations. Many persons had held that he carried this indifference too far, especially the large number of those to whom he owed money. Of their opinions Isabel was never very definitely informed; but it may interest the reader to know that, while they had recognised in the late Mr. Archer a remarkably handsome head and a very taking manner (indeed, as one of them had said, he was always taking something), they had declared that he was making a very poor use of his life. He had squandered a substantial fortune, he had been deplorably convivial, he was known to have gambled freely. A few very harsh critics went so far as to say that he had not even brought up his daughters. They had had no regular education and no permanent home; they had been at once spoiled and neglected; they had lived with nursemaids and governesses (usually very bad ones) or had been sent to superficial schools, kept by the French, from which, at the end of a month, they had been removed in tears. This view of the matter would have excited Isabel's indignation, for to her own sense her opportunities had been large. Even when her father had left his daughters for three months at Neufchatel with a French bonne who had eloped with a Russian nobleman staying at the same hotel--even in this irregular situation (an incident of the girl's eleventh year) she had been neither frightened nor ashamed, but had thought it a romantic episode in a liberal education. Her father had a large way of looking at life, of which his restlessness and even his occasional incoherency of conduct had been only a proof. He wished his daughters, even as children, to see as much of the world as possible; and it was for this purpose that, before Isabel was fourteen, he had transported them three times across the Atlantic, giving them on each occasion, however, but a few months' view of the subject proposed: a course which had whetted our heroine's curiosity without enabling her to satisfy it. She ought to have been a partisan of her father, for she was the member of his trio who most "made up" to him for the disagreeables he didn't mention. In his last days his general willingness to take leave of a world in which the difficulty of doing as one liked appeared to increase as one grew older had been sensibly modified by the pain of separation from his clever, his superior, his remarkable girl. Later, when the journeys to Europe ceased, he still had shown his children all sorts of indulgence, and if he had been troubled about money-matters nothing ever disturbed their irreflective consciousness of many possessions. Isabel, though she danced very well, had not the recollection of having been in New York a successful member of the choreographic circle; her sister Edith was, as every one said, so very much more fetching. Edith was so striking an example of success that Isabel could have no illusions as to what constituted this advantage, or as to the limits of her own power to frisk and jump and shriek--above all with rightness of effect. Nineteen persons out of twenty (including the younger sister herself) pronounced Edith infinitely the prettier of the two; but the twentieth, besides reversing this judgement, had the entertainment of thinking all the others aesthetic vulgarians. Isabel had in the depths of her nature an even more unquenchable desire to please than Edith; but the depths of this young lady's nature were a very out-of-the-way place, between which and the surface communication was interrupted by a dozen capricious forces. She saw the young men who came in large numbers to see her sister; but as a general thing they were afraid of her; they had a belief that some special preparation was required for talking with her. 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; she had an immense curiosity about life and was constantly staring and wondering. She carried within herself a great fund of life, and her deepest enjoyment was to feel the continuity between the movements of her own soul and the agitations of the world. For this reason she was fond of seeing great crowds and large stretches of country, of reading about revolutions and wars, of looking at historical pictures--a class of efforts as to which she had often committed the conscious solecism of forgiving them much bad painting for the sake of the subject. While the Civil War went on she was still a very young girl; but she passed months of this long period in a state of almost passionate excitement, in which she felt herself at times (to her extreme confusion) stirred almost indiscriminately by the valour of either army. Of course the circumspection of suspicious swains had never gone the length of making her a social proscript; for the number of those whose hearts, as they approached her, beat only just fast enough to remind them they had heads as well, had kept her unacquainted with the supreme disciplines of her sex and age. She had had everything a girl could have: kindness, admiration, bonbons, bouquets, the sense of exclusion from none of the privileges of the world she lived in, abundant opportunity for dancing, plenty of new dresses, the London Spectator, the latest publications, the music of Gounod, the poetry of Browning, the prose of George Eliot. These things now, as memory played over them, resolved themselves into a multitude of scenes and figures. Forgotten things came back to her; many others, which she had lately thought of great moment, dropped out of sight. The result was kaleidoscopic, but the movement of the instrument was checked at last by the servant's coming in with the name of a gentleman. The name of the gentleman was Caspar Goodwood; he was a straight young man from Boston, who had known Miss Archer for the last twelvemonth and who, thinking her the most beautiful young woman of her time, had pronounced the time, according to the rule I have hinted at, a foolish period of history. He sometimes wrote to her and had within a week or two written from New York. She had thought it very possible he would come in--had indeed all the rainy day been vaguely expecting him. Now that she learned he was there, nevertheless, she felt no eagerness to receive him. He was the finest young man she had ever seen, was indeed quite a splendid young man; he inspired her with a sentiment of high, of rare respect. She had never felt equally moved to it by any other person. He was supposed by the world in general to wish to marry her, but this of course was between themselves. It at least may be affirmed that he had travelled from New York to Albany expressly to see her; having learned in the former city, where he was spending a few days and where he had hoped to find her, that she was still at the State capital. Isabel delayed for some minutes to go to him; she moved about the room with a new sense of complications. But at last she presented herself and found him standing near the lamp. He was tall, strong and somewhat stiff; he was also lean and brown. He was not romantically, he was much rather obscurely, handsome; but his physiognomy had an air of requesting your attention, which it rewarded according to the charm you found in blue eyes of remarkable fixedness, the eyes of a complexion other than his own, and a jaw of the somewhat angular mould which is supposed to bespeak resolution. Isabel said to herself that it bespoke resolution to-night; 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.

Of the three Archer sisters, Lilian is thought to be the practical one, Edith the beautiful one, and Isabel the "intellectual" one. Lilian and Edith are both married: Lilian lives happily in New York with her vociferous husband and children, while beautiful Edith lives somewhat less happily in the "unfashionable West" . Lilian and her husband, Edmund, seem like perfectly nice, normal people. Lilian is worried about her exceptional younger sister, who is something of a mystery to them. Mr. Archer, their father, was notorious for not handling money well, often gambling and spending frivolously. Despite all of this, Isabel remembers her father fondly. Isabel thinks her life is wonderful; she has had every privilege and has never wanted for anything. She is almost disappointed because she thinks that hardship would give her life a little spice - at least, that's what the books she reads all suggest. Even if Isabel's life hasn't been full of challenges, it is certainly full of quirky excitement. Mr. Archer raised his three daughters in a haphazard fashion, trundling them around the world and hiring negligent nannies to care for them. Although a lot of men courted Edith, most men overlook Isabel or feel intimidated by her intellectual reputation. However, we are told that she is quite beautiful in her own, unique way. For about a year, Boston-based Caspar Goodwood has been steadfastly wooing Isabel via post. She finds him to be quite an impressive young man, but doesn't really know how she feels about him yet. Caspar travels from New York City to Albany to visit Isabel. She is slow to meet him and, despite the fact that he looks resolved to action, their visit is uneventful. He leaves, somewhat defeated.

summary

Ralph Touchett was a philosopher, but nevertheless he knocked at his mother's door (at a quarter to seven) with a good deal of eagerness. Even philosophers have their preferences, and it must be admitted that of his progenitors his father ministered most to his sense of the sweetness of filial dependence. His father, as he had often said to himself, was the more motherly; his mother, on the other hand, was paternal, and even, according to the slang of the day, gubernatorial. She was nevertheless very fond of her only child and had always insisted on his spending three months of the year with her. Ralph rendered perfect justice to her affection and knew that in her thoughts and her thoroughly arranged and servanted life his turn always came after the other nearest subjects of her solicitude, the various punctualities of performance of the workers of her will. He found her completely dressed for dinner, but she embraced her boy with her gloved hands and made him sit on the sofa beside her. She enquired scrupulously about her husband's health and about the young man's own, and, receiving no very brilliant account of either, remarked that she was more than ever convinced of her wisdom in not exposing herself to the English climate. In this case she also might have given way. Ralph smiled at the idea of his mother's giving way, but made no point of reminding her that his own infirmity was not the result of the English climate, from which he absented himself for a considerable part of each year. He had been a very small boy when his father, Daniel Tracy Touchett, a native of Rutland, in the State of Vermont, came to England as subordinate partner in a banking-house where some ten years later he gained preponderant control. Daniel Touchett saw before him a life-long residence in his adopted country, of which, from the first, he took a simple, sane and accommodating view. But, as he said to himself, he had no intention of disamericanising, nor had he a desire to teach his only son any such subtle art. It had been for himself so very soluble a problem to live in England assimilated yet unconverted that it seemed to him equally simple his lawful heir should after his death carry on the grey old bank in the white American light. He was at pains to intensify this light, however, by sending the boy home for his education. Ralph spent several terms at an American school and took a degree at an American university, after which, as he struck his father on his return as even redundantly native, he was placed for some three years in residence at Oxford. Oxford swallowed up Harvard, and Ralph became at last English enough. His outward conformity to the manners that surrounded him was none the less the mask of a mind that greatly enjoyed its independence, on which nothing long imposed itself, and which, naturally inclined to adventure and irony, indulged in a boundless liberty of appreciation. He began with being a young man of promise; at Oxford he distinguished himself, to his father's ineffable satisfaction, and the people about him said it was a thousand pities so clever a fellow should be shut out from a career. He might have had a career by returning to his own country (though this point is shrouded in uncertainty) and even if Mr. Touchett had been willing to part with him (which was not the case) it would have gone hard with him to put a watery waste permanently between himself and the old man whom he regarded as his best friend. Ralph was not only fond of his father, he admired him--he enjoyed the opportunity of observing him. Daniel Touchett, to his perception, was a man of genius, and though he himself had no aptitude for the banking mystery he made a point of learning enough of it to measure the great figure his father had played. It was not this, however, he mainly relished; it was the fine ivory surface, polished as by the English air, that the old man had opposed to possibilities of penetration. Daniel Touchett had been neither at Harvard nor at Oxford, and it was his own fault if he had placed in his son's hands the key to modern criticism. Ralph, whose head was full of ideas which his father had never guessed, had a high esteem for the latter's originality. Americans, rightly or wrongly, are commended for the ease with which they adapt themselves to foreign conditions; but Mr. Touchett had made of the very limits of his pliancy half the ground of his general success. He had retained in their freshness most of his marks of primary pressure; his tone, as his son always noted with pleasure, was that of the more luxuriant parts of New England. At the end of his life he had become, on his own ground, as mellow as he was rich; he combined consummate shrewdness with the disposition superficially to fraternise, and his "social position," on which he had never wasted a care, had the firm perfection of an unthumbed fruit. It was perhaps his want of imagination and of what is called the historic consciousness; but to many of the impressions usually made by English life upon the cultivated stranger his sense was completely closed. There were certain differences he had never perceived, certain habits he had never formed, certain obscurities he had never sounded. As regards these latter, on the day he had sounded them his son would have thought less well of him. Ralph, on leaving Oxford, had spent a couple of years in travelling; after which he had found himself perched on a high stool in his father's bank. The responsibility and honour of such positions is not, I believe, measured by the height of the stool, which depends upon other considerations: Ralph, indeed, who had very long legs, was fond of standing, and even of walking about, at his work. To this exercise, however, he was obliged to devote but a limited period, for at the end of some eighteen months he had become aware of his being seriously out of health. He had caught a violent cold, which fixed itself on his lungs and threw them into dire confusion. He had to give up work and apply, to the letter, the sorry injunction to take care of himself. At first he slighted the task; it appeared to him it was not himself in the least he was taking care of, but an uninteresting and uninterested person with whom he had nothing in common. This person, however, improved on acquaintance, and Ralph grew at last to have a certain grudging tolerance, even an undemonstrative respect, for him. Misfortune makes strange bedfellows, and our young man, feeling that he had something at stake in the matter--it usually struck him as his reputation for ordinary wit--devoted to his graceless charge an amount of attention of which note was duly taken and which had at least the effect of keeping the poor fellow alive. One of his lungs began to heal, the other promised to follow its example, and he was assured he might outweather a dozen winters if he would betake himself to those climates in which consumptives chiefly congregate. As he had grown extremely fond of London, he cursed the flatness of exile: but at the same time that he cursed he conformed, and gradually, when he found his sensitive organ grateful even for grim favours, he conferred them with a lighter hand. He wintered abroad, as the phrase is; basked in the sun, stopped at home when the wind blew, went to bed when it rained, and once or twice, when it had snowed overnight, almost never got up again. A secret hoard of indifference--like a thick cake a fond old nurse might have slipped into his first school outfit--came to his aid and helped to reconcile him to sacrifice; since at the best he was too ill for aught but that arduous game. As he said to himself, there was really nothing he had wanted very much to do, so that he had at least not renounced the field of valour. 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. But this vision was dispelled some three years before the occurrence of the incidents with which this history opens: he had on that occasion remained later than usual in England and had been overtaken by bad weather before reaching Algiers. He arrived more dead than alive and lay there for several weeks between life and death. His convalescence was a miracle, but the first use he made of it was to assure himself that such miracles happen but once. He said to himself that his hour was in sight and that it behoved him to keep his eyes upon it, yet that it was also open to him to spend the interval as agreeably as might be consistent with such a preoccupation. With the prospect of losing them the simple use of his faculties became an exquisite pleasure; it seemed to him the joys of contemplation had never been sounded. He was far from the time when he had found it hard that he should be obliged to give up the idea of distinguishing himself; an idea none the less importunate for being vague and none the less delightful for having had to struggle in the same breast with bursts of inspiring self-criticism. 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. If he was consideringly disposed, something told him, here was occupation enough for a succession of days. It may be added, in summary fashion, that the imagination of loving--as distinguished from that of being loved--had still a place in his reduced sketch. He had only forbidden himself the riot of expression. However, he shouldn't inspire his cousin with a passion, nor would she be able, even should she try, to help him to one. "And now tell me about the young lady," he said to his mother. "What do you mean to do with her?" Mrs. Touchett was prompt. "I mean to ask your father to invite her to stay three or four weeks at Gardencourt." "You needn't stand on any such ceremony as that," said Ralph. "My father will ask her as a matter of course." "I don't know about that. She's my niece; she's not his." "Good Lord, dear mother; what a sense of property! That's all the more reason for his asking her. But after that--I mean after three months (for its absurd asking the poor girl to remain but for three or four paltry weeks)--what do you mean to do with her?" "I mean to take her to Paris. I mean to get her clothing." "Ah yes, that's of course. But independently of that?" "I shall invite her to spend the autumn with me in Florence." "You don't rise above detail, dear mother," said Ralph. "I should like to know what you mean to do with her in a general way." "My duty!" Mrs. Touchett declared. "I suppose you pity her very much," she added. "No, I don't think I pity her. She doesn't strike me as inviting compassion. I think I envy her. Before being sure, however, give me a hint of where you see your duty." "In showing her four European countries--I shall leave her the choice of two of them--and in giving her the opportunity of perfecting herself in French, which she already knows very well." Ralph frowned a little. "That sounds rather dry--even allowing her the choice of two of the countries." "If it's dry," said his mother with a laugh, "you can leave Isabel alone to water it! She is as good as a summer rain, any day." "Do you mean she's a gifted being?" "I don't know whether she's a gifted being, but she's a clever girl--with a strong will and a high temper. She has no idea of being bored." "I can imagine that," said Ralph; and then he added abruptly: "How do you two get on?" "Do you mean by that that I'm a bore? I don't think she finds me one. Some girls might, I know; but Isabel's too clever for that. I think I greatly amuse her. We get on because I understand her, I know the sort of girl she is. She's very frank, and I'm very frank: we know just what to expect of each other." "Ah, dear mother," Ralph exclaimed, "one always knows what to expect of you! You've never surprised me but once, and that's to-day--in presenting me with a pretty cousin whose existence I had never suspected." "Do you think her so very pretty?" "Very pretty indeed; but I don't insist upon that. It's her general air of being some one in particular that strikes me. Who is this rare creature, and what is she? Where did you find her, and how did you make her acquaintance?" "I found her in an old house at Albany, sitting in a dreary room on a rainy day, reading a heavy book and boring herself to death. She didn't know she was bored, but when I left her no doubt of it she seemed very grateful for the service. You may say I shouldn't have enlightened he--I should have let her alone. There's a good deal in that, but I acted conscientiously; I thought she was meant for something better. It occurred to me that it would be a kindness to take her about and introduce her to the world. She thinks she knows a great deal of it--like most American girls; but like most American girls she's ridiculously mistaken. If you want to know, I thought she would do me credit. I like to be well thought of, and for a woman of my age there's no greater convenience, in some ways, than an attractive niece. You know I had seen nothing of my sister's children for years; I disapproved entirely of the father. But I always meant to do something for them when he should have gone to his reward. I ascertained where they were to be found and, without any preliminaries, went and introduced myself. There are two others of them, both of whom are married; but I saw only the elder, who has, by the way, a very uncivil husband. The wife, whose name is Lily, jumped at the idea of my taking an interest in Isabel; she said it was just what her sister needed--that some one should take an interest in her. She spoke of her as you might speak of some young person of genius--in want of encouragement and patronage. It may be that Isabel's a genius; but in that case I've not yet learned her special line. Mrs. Ludlow was especially keen about my taking her to Europe; they all regard Europe over there as a land of emigration, of rescue, a refuge for their superfluous population. Isabel herself seemed very glad to come, and the thing was easily arranged. There was a little difficulty about the money-question, as she seemed averse to being under pecuniary obligations. But she has a small income and she supposes herself to be travelling at her own expense." Ralph had listened attentively to this judicious report, by which his interest in the subject of it was not impaired. "Ah, if she's a genius," he said, "we must find out her special line. Is it by chance for flirting?" "I don't think so. You may suspect that at first, but you'll be wrong. You won't, I think, in any way, be easily right about her." "Warburton's wrong then!" Ralph rejoicingly exclaimed. "He flatters himself he has made that discovery." His mother shook her head. "Lord Warburton won't understand her. He needn't try." "He's very intelligent," said Ralph; "but it's right he should be puzzled once in a while." "Isabel will enjoy puzzling a lord," Mrs. Touchett remarked. Her son frowned a little. "What does she know about lords?" "Nothing at all: that will puzzle him all the more." Ralph greeted these words with a laugh and looked out of the window. Then, "Are you not going down to see my father?" he asked. "At a quarter to eight," said Mrs. Touchett. Her son looked at his watch. "You've another quarter of an hour then. Tell me some more about Isabel." After which, as Mrs. Touchett declined his invitation, declaring that he must find out for himself, "Well," he pursued, "she'll certainly do you credit. But won't she also give you trouble?" "I hope not; but if she does I shall not shrink from it. I never do that." "She strikes me as very natural," said Ralph. "Natural people are not the most trouble." "No," said Ralph; "you yourself are a proof of that. You're extremely natural, and I'm sure you have never troubled any one. It takes trouble to do that. But tell me this; it just occurs to me. Is Isabel capable of making herself disagreeable?" "Ah," cried his mother, "you ask too many questions! Find that out for yourself." His questions, however, were not exhausted. "All this time," he said, "you've not told me what you intend to do with her." "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." "What you meant then, in your telegram, was that her character's independent." "I never know what I mean in my telegrams--especially those I send from America. Clearness is too expensive. Come down to your father." "It's not yet a quarter to eight," said Ralph. "I must allow for his impatience," Mrs. Touchett answered. Ralph knew what to think of his father's impatience; but, making no rejoinder, he offered his mother his arm. This put it in his power, as they descended together, to stop her a moment on the middle landing of the staircase--the broad, low, wide-armed staircase of time-blackened oak which was one of the most striking features of Gardencourt. "You've no plan of marrying her?" he smiled. "Marrying her? I should be sorry to play her such a trick! But apart from that, she's perfectly able to marry herself. She has every facility." "Do you mean to say she has a husband picked out?" "I don't know about a husband, but there's a young man in Boston--!" Ralph went on; he had no desire to hear about the young man in Boston. "As my father says, they're always engaged!" His mother had told him that he must satisfy his curiosity at the source, and it soon became evident he should not want for occasion. He had a good deal of talk with his young kinswoman when the two had been left together in the drawing-room. Lord Warburton, who had ridden over from his own house, some ten miles distant, remounted and took his departure before dinner; and an hour after this meal was ended Mr. and Mrs. Touchett, who appeared to have quite emptied the measure of their forms, withdrew, under the valid pretext of fatigue, to their respective apartments. The young man spent an hour with his cousin; though she had been travelling half the day she appeared in no degree spent. She was really tired; she knew it, and knew she should pay for it on the morrow; but it was her habit at this period to carry exhaustion to the furthest point and confess to it only when dissimulation broke down. A fine hypocrisy was for the present possible; she was interested; she was, as she said to herself, floated. She asked Ralph to show her the pictures; there were a great many in the house, most of them of his own choosing. The best were arranged in an oaken gallery, of charming proportions, which had a sitting-room at either end of it and which in the evening was usually lighted. The light was insufficient to show the pictures to advantage, and the visit might have stood over to the morrow. This suggestion Ralph had ventured to make; but Isabel looked disappointed--smiling still, however--and said: "If you please I should like to see them just a little." She was eager, she knew she was eager and now seemed so; she couldn't help it. "She doesn't take suggestions," Ralph said to himself; but he said it without irritation; her pressure amused and even pleased him. The lamps were on brackets, at intervals, and if the light was imperfect it was genial. It fell upon the vague squares of rich colour and on the faded gilding of heavy frames; it made a sheen on the polished floor of the gallery. Ralph took a candlestick and moved about, pointing out the things he liked; Isabel, inclining to one picture after another, indulged in little exclamations and murmurs. She was evidently a judge; she had a natural taste; he was struck with that. She took a candlestick herself and held it slowly here and there; she lifted it high, and as she did so he found himself pausing in the middle of the place and bending his eyes much less upon the pictures than on her presence. He lost nothing, in truth, by these wandering glances, for she was better worth looking at than most works of art. She was undeniably spare, and ponderably light, and proveably tall; when people had wished to distinguish her from the other two Miss Archers they had always called her the willowy one. Her hair, which was dark even to blackness, had been an object of envy to many women; her light grey eyes, a little too firm perhaps in her graver moments, had an enchanting range of concession. They walked slowly up one side of the gallery and down the other, and then she said: "Well, now I know more than I did when I began!" "You apparently have a great passion for knowledge," her cousin returned. "I think I have; most girls are horridly ignorant." "You strike me as different from most girls." "Ah, some of them would--but the way they're talked to!" murmured Isabel, who preferred not to dilate just yet on herself. Then in a moment, to change the subject, "Please tell me--isn't there a ghost?" she went on. "A ghost?" "A castle-spectre, a thing that appears. We call them ghosts in America." "So we do here, when we see them." "You do see them then? You ought to, in this romantic old house." "It's not a romantic old house," said Ralph. "You'll be disappointed if you count on that. It's a dismally prosaic one; there's no romance here but what you may have brought with you." "I've brought a great deal; but it seems to me I've brought it to the right place." "To keep it out of harm, certainly; nothing will ever happen to it here, between my father and me." Isabel looked at him a moment. "Is there never any one here but your father and you?" "My mother, of course." "Oh, I know your mother; she's not romantic. Haven't you other people?" "Very few." "I'm sorry for that; I like so much to see people." "Oh, we'll invite all the county to amuse you," said Ralph. "Now you're making fun of me," the girl answered rather gravely. "Who was the gentleman on the lawn when I arrived?" "A county neighbour; he doesn't come very often." "I'm sorry for that; I liked him," said Isabel. "Why, it seemed to me that you barely spoke to him," Ralph objected. "Never mind, I like him all the same. I like your father too, immensely." "You can't do better than that. He's the dearest of the dear." "I'm so sorry he is ill," said Isabel. "You must help me to nurse him; you ought to be a good nurse." "I don't think I am; I've been told I'm not; I'm said to have too many theories. But you haven't told me about the ghost," she added. Ralph, however, gave no heed to this observation. "You like my father and you like Lord Warburton. I infer also that you like my mother." "I like your mother very much, because--because--" And Isabel found herself attempting to assign a reason for her affection for Mrs. Touchett. "Ah, we never know why!" said her companion, laughing. "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." "So you adore her--out of perversity? Well, I take greatly after my mother," said Ralph. "I don't believe you do at all. You wish people to like you, and you try to make them do it." "Good heavens, how you see through one!" he cried with a dismay that was not altogether jocular. "But I like you all the same," his cousin went on. "The way to clinch the matter will be to show me the ghost." Ralph shook his head sadly. "I might show it to you, but you'd never see it. The privilege isn't given to every one; it's not enviable. It has never been seen by a young, happy, innocent person like you. You must have suffered first, have suffered greatly, have gained some miserable knowledge. In that way your eyes are opened to it. I saw it long ago," said Ralph. "I told you just now I'm very fond of knowledge," Isabel answered. "Yes, of happy knowledge--of pleasant knowledge. But you haven't suffered, and you're not made to suffer. I hope you'll never see the ghost!" She had listened to him attentively, with a smile on her lips, but with a certain gravity in her eyes. Charming as he found her, she had struck him as rather presumptuous--indeed it was a part of her charm; and he wondered what she would say. "I'm not afraid, you know," she said: which seemed quite presumptuous enough. "You're not afraid of suffering?" "Yes, I'm afraid of suffering. But I'm not afraid of ghosts. And I think people suffer too easily," she added. "I don't believe you do," said Ralph, looking at her with his hands in his pockets. "I don't think that's a fault," she answered. "It's not absolutely necessary to suffer; we were not made for that." "You were not, certainly." "I'm not speaking of myself." And she wandered off a little. "No, it isn't a fault," said her cousin. "It's a merit to be strong." "Only, if you don't suffer they call you hard," Isabel remarked. 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." She looked at him a little; she had taken her candle and placed her foot on the oaken stair. "Well," she said, "that's what I came to Europe for, to be as happy as possible. Good-night." "Good-night! I wish you all success, and shall be very glad to contribute to it!" She turned away, and he watched her as she slowly ascended. Then, with his hands always in his pockets, he went back to the empty drawing-room.

Ralph and his mother exchange pleasantries. While they chat, we find out some details on Ralph's past. After attending both Harvard and Oxford , Ralph took a position at his father's bank. At university, he was considered a very promising young man. Growing up, he admired his father more than anyone else. Sadly, Ralph fell ill while working at the bank, and never quite recovered. As a result, he stopped working to take care of his health. We don't know exactly what's wrong with him, but he has weak lungs. Ralph resigns himself to indifference in order to make his life seem less of a disappointment. Isabel's arrival, however, has gotten his blood flowing in a new way. He asks his mother what she means to do with Isabel. Mrs. Touchett plans to invite her to stay at Gardencourt for some weeks, then plans to take Isabel to France to buy clothes, and then to Florence in the autumn. Mrs. Touchett sees something special in Isabel, perhaps something that reminds her of herself. She thinks that Isabel might be a genius in some way. When Ralph asks too many questions about Isabel, Mrs. Touchett insists that he find out himself. Ralph finally straight-out asks Mrs. Touchett the question he's been wondering the whole time: does she plan to marry Isabel off? Mrs. Touchett replies that Isabel can do whatever she'd like. Ralph escorts his mother down to meet with his father. Ralph sits and talks with Isabel for an hour, while his parents chat, and Lord Warburton leaves to go home for dinner. Ralph and Isabel look at the paintings in the house. Ralph is impressed with Isabel's natural taste for art. Gardencourt being a large, old, very historic house, Isabel assumes that there's a family ghost. Ralph confesses that there is one and that he has seen it, but Isabel can't, because she hasn't suffered enough yet. This conversation is half-joking, half-serious. Isabel insists that she is not afraid of ghosts. Ralph hands her a candle to light the path to her room. Ralph returns to the drawing-room alone.

summary

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. It is true that among her contemporaries she passed for a young woman of extraordinary profundity; for these excellent people never withheld their admiration from a reach of intellect of which they themselves were not conscious, and spoke of Isabel as a prodigy of learning, a creature reported to have read the classic authors--in translations. 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 Miss Varians. Practically, Mrs. Varian's acquaintance with literature was confined to The New York Interviewer; as she very justly said, after you had read the Interviewer you had lost all faith in culture. Her tendency, with this, was rather to keep the Interviewer out of the way of her daughters; she was determined to bring them up properly, and they read nothing at all. Her impression with regard to Isabel's labours was quite illusory; the girl had never attempted to write a book and had no desire for the laurels of authorship. She had no talent for expression and too little of the consciousness of genius; she only had a general idea that people were right when they treated her as if she were rather superior. Whether or no she were superior, people were right in admiring her if they thought her so; for it seemed to her often that her mind moved more quickly than theirs, and this encouraged an impatience that might easily be confounded with superiority. It may be affirmed without delay that Isabel was probably very liable to the sin of self-esteem; she often surveyed with complacency the field of her own nature; she was in the habit of taking for granted, on scanty evidence, that she was right; she treated herself to occasions of homage. Meanwhile her errors and delusions were frequently such as a biographer interested in preserving the dignity of his subject must shrink from specifying. Her thoughts were a tangle of vague outlines which had never been corrected by the judgement of people speaking with authority. In matters of opinion she had had her own way, and it had led her into a thousand ridiculous zigzags. At moments she discovered she was grotesquely wrong, and then she treated herself to a week of passionate humility. After this she held her head higher than ever again; for it was of no use, she had an unquenchable desire to think well of herself. She had a theory that it was only under this provision life was worth living; that one should be one of the best, should be conscious of a fine organisation (she couldn't help knowing her organisation was fine), should move in a realm of light, of natural wisdom, of happy impulse, of inspiration gracefully chronic. It was almost as unnecessary to cultivate doubt of one's self as to cultivate doubt of one's best friend: one should try to be one's own best friend and to give one's self, in this manner, distinguished company. The girl had a certain nobleness of imagination which rendered her a good many services and played her a great many tricks. 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 person, presented only as a contingency, caused her at moments to hold her breath. That always struck her as the worst thing that could happen to her. On the whole, reflectively, she was in no uncertainty about the things that were wrong. She had no love of their look, but when she fixed them hard she recognised them. It was wrong to be mean, to be jealous, to be false, to be cruel; she had seen very little of the evil of the world, but she had seen women who lied and who tried to hurt each other. Seeing such things had quickened her high spirit; it seemed indecent not to scorn them. Of course the danger of a high spirit was the danger of inconsistency--the danger of keeping up the flag after the place has surrendered; 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. Altogether, with her meagre knowledge, her inflated ideals, her confidence at once innocent and dogmatic, her temper at once exacting and indulgent, her mixture of curiosity and fastidiousness, of vivacity and indifference, her desire to look very well and to be if possible even better, her determination to see, to try, to know, her combination of the delicate, desultory, flame-like spirit and the eager and personal creature of conditions: she would be an easy victim of scientific criticism if she were not intended to awaken on the reader's part an impulse more tender and more purely expectant. It was one of her theories that Isabel Archer was very fortunate in being independent, and that she ought to make some very enlightened use of that state. She never called it the state of solitude, much less of singleness; she thought such descriptions weak, and, besides, her sister Lily constantly urged her to come and abide. She had a friend whose acquaintance she had made shortly before her father's death, who offered so high an example of useful activity that Isabel always thought of her as a model. Henrietta Stackpole had the advantage of an admired ability; she was thoroughly launched in journalism, and her letters to the Interviewer, from Washington, Newport, the White Mountains and other places, were universally quoted. Isabel pronounced them with confidence "ephemeral," but she esteemed the courage, energy and good-humour of the writer, who, without parents and without property, had adopted three of the children of an infirm and widowed sister and was paying their school-bills out of the proceeds of her literary labour. Henrietta was in the van of progress and had clear-cut views on most subjects; her cherished desire had long been to come to Europe and write a series of letters to the Interviewer from the radical point of view--an enterprise the less difficult as she knew perfectly in advance what her opinions would be and to how many objections most European institutions lay open. When she heard that Isabel was coming she wished to start at once; thinking, naturally, that it would be delightful the two should travel together. She had been obliged, however, to postpone this enterprise. She thought Isabel a glorious creature, and had spoken of her covertly in some of her letters, though she never mentioned the fact to her friend, who would not have taken pleasure in it and was not a regular student of the Interviewer. Henrietta, for Isabel, was chiefly a proof that a woman might suffice to herself and be happy. Her resources were of the obvious kind; but even if one had 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. The first on the list was a conviction of the vulgarity of thinking too much of it. From lapsing into eagerness on this point she earnestly prayed she might be delivered; she held that a woman ought to be able to live to herself, in the absence of exceptional flimsiness, and that it was perfectly possible to be happy without the society of a more or less coarse-minded person of another sex. The girl's prayer was very sufficiently answered; something pure and proud that there was in her--something cold and dry an unappreciated suitor with a taste for analysis might have called it--had hitherto kept her from any great vanity of conjecture on the article of possible husbands. Few of the men she saw seemed worth a ruinous expenditure, and it made her smile to think that one of them should present himself as an incentive to hope and a reward of patience. Deep in her soul--it was the deepest thing there--lay a belief that if a certain light should dawn she could give herself completely; but this image, on the whole, was too formidable to be attractive. Isabel's thoughts hovered about it, but they seldom rested on it long; 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 of one's spirit was harmless when one returned from it with a lapful of roses. But she was often reminded that there were other gardens in the world than those of her remarkable soul, and that there were moreover a great many places which were not gardens at all--only dusky pestiferous tracts, planted thick with ugliness and misery. In the current of that repaid curiosity on which she had lately been floating, which had conveyed her 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. She always returned to her theory that a young woman whom after all every one thought clever should begin by getting a general impression of life. This impression was necessary to prevent mistakes, and after it should be secured she might make the unfortunate condition of others a subject of special attention. England was a revelation to her, and she found herself as diverted as a child at a pantomime. In her infantine excursions to Europe she had seen only the Continent, and seen it from the nursery window; Paris, not London, was her father's Mecca, and into many of his interests there his children had naturally not entered. The images of that time moreover had grown faint and remote, and the old-world quality in everything that she now saw had all the charm of strangeness. Her uncle's house seemed a picture made real; no refinement of the agreeable was lost upon Isabel; the rich perfection of Gardencourt at once revealed a world and gratified a need. The large, low rooms, with brown ceilings and dusky corners, the deep embrasures and curious casements, the quiet light on dark, polished panels, the deep greenness outside, that seemed always peeping in, the sense of well-ordered privacy in the centre of a "property"--a place where sounds were felicitously accidental, where the tread was muffed by the earth itself and in the thick mild air all friction dropped out of contact and all shrillness out of talk--these things were much to the taste of our young lady, whose taste played a considerable part in her emotions. She formed a fast friendship with her uncle, and often sat by his chair when he had had it moved out to the lawn. He passed hours in the open air, sitting with folded hands like a placid, homely household god, a god of service, who had done his work and received his wages and was trying to grow used to weeks and months made up only of off-days. Isabel amused him more than she suspected--the effect she produced upon people was often different from what she supposed--and he frequently gave himself the pleasure of making her chatter. It was by this term that he qualified her conversation, which had much of the "point" observable in that of the young ladies of her country, to whom the ear of the world is more directly presented than to their sisters in other lands. Like the mass of American girls Isabel had been encouraged to express herself; her remarks had been attended to; she had been expected to have emotions and opinions. Many of her opinions had doubtless but a slender value, many of her emotions passed away in the utterance; but they had left a trace in giving her the habit of seeming at least to feel and think, and in imparting moreover to her words when she was really moved that prompt vividness which so many people had regarded as a sign of superiority. Mr. Touchett used to think that she reminded him of his wife when his wife was in her teens. It was because she was fresh and natural and quick to understand, to speak--so many characteristics of her niece--that he had fallen in love with Mrs. Touchett. He never expressed this analogy to the girl herself, however; for if Mrs. Touchett had once been like Isabel, Isabel was not at all like Mrs. Touchett. The old man was full of kindness for her; it was a long time, as he said, since they had had any young life in the house; and our rustling, quickly-moving, clear-voiced heroine was as agreeable to his sense as the sound of flowing water. He wanted to do something for her and wished she would ask it of him. She would ask nothing but questions; it is true that of these she asked a quantity. Her uncle had a great fund of answers, though her pressure sometimes came in forms that puzzled him. She questioned him immensely about England, about the British constitution, the English character, the state of politics, the manners and customs of the royal family, the peculiarities of the aristocracy, the way of living and thinking of his neighbours; and in begging to be enlightened on these points she usually enquired whether they corresponded with the descriptions in the books. The old man always looked at her a little with his fine dry smile while he smoothed down the shawl spread across his legs. "The books?" he once said; "well, I don't know much about the books. You must ask Ralph about that. I've always ascertained for myself--got my information in the natural form. I never asked many questions even; I just kept quiet and took notice. Of course I've had very good opportunities--better than what a young lady would naturally have. I'm of an inquisitive disposition, though you mightn't think it if you were to watch me: however much you might watch me I should be watching you more. I've been watching these people for upwards of thirty-five years, and I don't hesitate to say that I've acquired considerable information. It's a very fine country on the whole--finer perhaps than what we give it credit for on the other side. Several improvements I should like to see introduced; but the necessity of them doesn't seem to be generally felt as yet. When the necessity of a thing is generally felt they usually manage to accomplish it; 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." "Do you suppose that if I'm successful I shall feel at home?" Isabel asked. "I should think it very probable, and you certainly will be successful. They like American young ladies very much over here; they show them a great deal of kindness. But you mustn't feel too much at home, you know." "Oh, I'm by no means sure it will satisfy me," Isabel judicially emphasised. "I like the place very much, but I'm not sure I shall like the people." "The people are very good people; especially if you like them." "I've no doubt they're good," Isabel rejoined; "but are they pleasant in society? They won't rob me nor beat me; but will they make themselves agreeable to me? That's what I like people to do. I don't hesitate to say so, because I always appreciate it. I don't believe they're very nice to girls; they're not nice to them in the novels." "I don't know about the novels," said Mr. Touchett. "I believe the novels have a great deal but I don't suppose they're very accurate. We once had a lady who wrote novels staying here; she was a friend of Ralph's and he asked her down. She was very positive, quite up to everything; but she was not the sort of person you could depend on for evidence. Too free a fancy--I suppose that was it. She afterwards published a work of fiction in which she was understood to have given a representation--something in the nature of a caricature, as you might say--of my unworthy self. I didn't read it, but Ralph just handed me the book with the principal passages marked. It was understood to be a description of my conversation; American peculiarities, nasal twang, Yankee notions, stars and stripes. Well, it was not at all accurate; she couldn't have listened very attentively. I had no objection to her giving a report of my conversation, if she liked but I didn't like the idea that she hadn't taken the trouble to listen to it. Of course I talk like an American--I can't talk like a Hottentot. However I talk, I've made them understand me pretty well over here. But I don't talk like the old gentleman in that lady's novel. He wasn't an American; we wouldn't have him over there at any price. I just mention that fact to show you that they're not always accurate. Of course, as I've no daughters, and as Mrs. Touchett resides in Florence, I haven't had much chance to notice about the young ladies. It sometimes appears as if the young women in the lower class were not very well treated; but I guess their position is better in the upper and even to some extent in the middle." "Gracious," Isabel exclaimed; "how many classes have they? About fifty, I suppose." "Well, I don't know that I ever counted them. I never took much notice of the classes. That's the advantage of being an American here; you don't belong to any class." "I hope so," said Isabel. "Imagine one's belonging to an English class!" "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." "I'm much obliged to you," said the girl quickly. Her way of taking compliments seemed sometimes rather dry; she got rid of them as rapidly as possible. But as regards this she was sometimes misjudged; she was thought insensible to them, whereas in fact she was simply unwilling to show how infinitely they pleased her. To show that was to show too much. "I'm sure the English are very conventional," she added. "They've got everything pretty well fixed," Mr. Touchett admitted. "It's all settled beforehand--they don't leave it to the last moment." "I don't like to have everything settled beforehand," said the girl. "I like more unexpectedness." Her uncle seemed amused at her distinctness of preference. "Well, it's settled beforehand that you'll have great success," he rejoined. "I suppose you'll like that." "I shall not have success if they're too stupidly conventional. I'm not in the least stupidly conventional. I'm just the contrary. That's what they won't like." "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." "Ah well," said Isabel, standing before her uncle with her hands clasped about the belt of her black dress and looking up and down the lawn--"that will suit me perfectly!"

Finally, we get a detailed glimpse of young Miss Archer. Isabel thinks quite highly of herself - actually, everyone thinks quite highly of her. She's intelligent, creative, and, most certainly, in the words of Lord Warburton, an interesting woman. Her pride is one of her distinguishing characteristics - though it can come off as arrogance sometimes, she is the first to admit when she's made a mistake. Her greatest desire is to perfect herself. Isabel's best friend is Henrietta Stackpole, another independent, intelligent, and apparently quite interesting young woman. Henrietta is some kind of intrepid girl-reporter, and supports her sister's young children with her earnings. Isabel, like Henrietta, considers independence very important, and thinks that women should be able to live without men. She vaguely wonders about marriage, but has never been in love. Isabel reminds Mr. Touchett a little of the young Mrs. Touchett. Newly planted in English soil, Isabel is very curious to know about the country and its people. She asks Mr. Touchett if England really is how it's depicted in books. Mr. Touchett says that anything he's learned he's learned by observation and participation, not from second-hand sources. The amiable pair discusses the role of the American in England, undefined by social class. Mr. Touchett says that English people are very "inconsistent," which pleases Isabel, since she herself is unpredictable, too.

summary

The two amused themselves, time and again, with talking of the attitude of the British public as if the young lady had been in a position to appeal to it; but in fact the British public remained for the present profoundly indifferent to Miss Isabel Archer, whose fortune had dropped her, as her cousin said, into the dullest house in England. Her gouty uncle received very little company, and Mrs. Touchett, not having cultivated relations with her husband's neighbours, was not warranted in expecting visits from them. She had, however, a peculiar taste; she liked to receive cards. For what is usually called social intercourse she had very little relish; but nothing pleased her more than to find her hall-table whitened with oblong morsels of symbolic pasteboard. She flattered herself that she was a very just woman, and had mastered the sovereign truth that nothing in this world is got for nothing. She had played no social part as mistress of Gardencourt, and it was not to be supposed that, in the surrounding country, a minute account should be kept of her comings and goings. But it is by no means certain that she did not feel it to be wrong that so little notice was taken of them and that her failure (really very gratuitous) to make herself important in the neighbourhood had not much to do with the acrimony of her allusions to her husband's adopted country. Isabel presently found herself in the singular situation of defending the British constitution against her aunt; Mrs. Touchett having formed the habit of sticking pins into this venerable instrument. Isabel always felt an impulse to pull out the pins; not that she imagined they inflicted any damage on the tough old parchment, but because it seemed to her her aunt might make better use of her sharpness. She was very critical herself--it was incidental to her age, her sex and her nationality; but she was very sentimental as well, and there was something in Mrs. Touchett's dryness that set her own moral fountains flowing. "Now what's your point of view?" she asked of her aunt. "When you criticise everything here you should have a point of view. Yours doesn't seem to be American--you thought everything over there so disagreeable. When I criticise I have mine; it's thoroughly American!" "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!" Isabel thought this a better answer than she admitted; it was a tolerable description of her own manner of judging, but it would not have sounded well for her to say so. On the lips of a person less advanced in life and less enlightened by experience than Mrs. Touchett such a declaration would savour of immodesty, even of arrogance. She risked it nevertheless in talking with Ralph, with whom she talked a great deal and with whom her conversation was of a sort that gave a large licence to extravagance. Her cousin used, as the phrase is, to chaff her; he very soon established with her a reputation for treating everything as a joke, and he was not a man to neglect the privileges such a reputation conferred. She accused him of an odious want of seriousness, of laughing at all things, beginning with himself. Such slender faculty of reverence as he possessed centred wholly upon his father; for the rest, he exercised his wit indifferently upon his father's son, this gentleman's weak lungs, his useless life, his fantastic mother, his friends (Lord Warburton in especial), his adopted, and his native country, his charming new-found cousin. "I keep a band of music in my ante-room," 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 ear-shot of Ralph's band; the liveliest waltzes seemed to float upon the air. Isabel often found herself irritated by this perpetual fiddling; she would have liked to pass through the ante-room, as her cousin called it, and enter the private apartments. It mattered little that he had assured her they were a very dismal place; she would have been glad to undertake to sweep them and set them in order. It was but half-hospitality to let her remain outside; to punish him for which Isabel administered innumerable taps with the ferule of her straight young wit. It must be said that her wit was exercised to a large extent in self-defence, for her cousin amused himself with calling her "Columbia" and accusing her of a patriotism so heated that it scorched. 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 would be as American as it pleased him to regard her, and if he chose to laugh at her she would give him plenty of occupation. She defended England against his mother, but when Ralph sang its praises on purpose, as she said, to work her up, she found herself able to differ from him on a variety of points. In fact, the quality of this small ripe country seemed as sweet to her as the taste of an October pear; and her satisfaction was at the root of the good spirits which enabled her to take her cousin's chaff and return it in kind. If her good-humour flagged at moments it was not because she thought herself ill-used, but because she suddenly felt sorry for Ralph. It seemed to her he was talking as a blind and had little heart in what he said. "I don't know what's the matter with you," she observed to him once; "but I suspect you're a great humbug." "That's your privilege," Ralph answered, who had not been used to being so crudely addressed. "I don't know what you care for; I don't think you care for anything. You don't really care for England when you praise it; you don't care for America even when you pretend to abuse it." "I care for nothing but you, dear cousin," said Ralph. "If I could believe even that, I should be very glad." "Ah well, I should hope so!" the young man exclaimed. Isabel might have believed it and not have been far from the truth. He thought a great deal about her; she was constantly present to his mind. At a time when his thoughts had been a good deal of a burden to him her sudden arrival, which promised nothing and was an open-handed gift of fate, had refreshed and quickened them, given them wings and something to fly for. Poor Ralph had been for many weeks steeped in melancholy; his outlook, habitually sombre, lay under the shadow of a deeper cloud. He had grown anxious about his father, whose gout, hitherto confined to his legs, had begun to ascend into regions more vital. The old man had been gravely ill in the spring, and the doctors had whispered to Ralph that another attack would be less easy to deal with. Just now he appeared disburdened of pain, but Ralph could not rid himself of a suspicion that this was a subterfuge of the enemy, who was waiting to take him off his guard. If the manoeuvre should succeed there would be little hope of any great resistance. Ralph had always taken for granted that his father would survive him--that his own name would be the first grimly called. The father and son had been close companions, and the idea of being left alone with the remnant of a tasteless life on his hands was not gratifying to the young man, who had always and tacitly counted upon his elder's help in making the best of a poor business. At the prospect of losing his great motive Ralph lost indeed his one inspiration. If they might die at the same time it would be all very well; but without the encouragement of his father's society he should barely have patience to await his own turn. He had not the incentive of feeling that he was indispensable to his mother; it was a rule with his mother to have no regrets. He bethought himself of course that it had been a small kindness to his father to wish that, of the two, the active rather than the passive party should know the felt wound; he remembered that the old man had always treated his own forecast of an early end as a clever fallacy, which he should be delighted to discredit so far as he might by dying first. But of the two triumphs, that of refuting a sophistical son and that of holding on a while longer to a state of being which, with all abatements, he enjoyed, Ralph deemed it no sin to hope the latter might be vouchsafed to Mr. Touchett. These were nice questions, but Isabel's arrival put a stop to his puzzling over them. It even suggested there might be a compensation for the intolerable ennui of surviving his genial sire. He wondered whether he were harbouring "love" for this spontaneous young woman from Albany; but he judged that on the whole he was not. After he had known her for a week he quite made up his mind to this, and every day he felt a little more sure. Lord Warburton had been right about her; she was a really interesting little figure. Ralph wondered how their neighbour had found it out so soon; and then he said it was only another proof of his friend's high abilities, which he had always greatly admired. If his cousin were to be nothing more than an entertainment to him, Ralph was conscious she was an entertainment of a high order. "A character like that," he said to himself--"a real little passionate force to see at play is the finest thing in nature. It's finer than the finest work of art--than a Greek bas-relief, than a great Titian, than a Gothic cathedral. It's very pleasant to be so well treated where one had least looked for it. I had never been more blue, more bored, than for a week before she came; I had never expected less that anything pleasant would happen. Suddenly I receive a Titian, by the post, to hang on my wall--a Greek bas-relief to stick over my chimney-piece. The key of a beautiful edifice is thrust into my hand, and I'm told to walk in and admire. My poor boy, you've been sadly ungrateful, and now you had better keep very quiet and never grumble again." The sentiment of these reflexions was very just; but it was not exactly true that Ralph Touchett had had a key put into his hand. His cousin was a very brilliant girl, who would take, as he said, a good deal of knowing; but she needed the knowing, and his attitude with regard to her, though it was contemplative and critical, was not judicial. He surveyed the edifice from the outside and admired it greatly; he looked in at the windows and received an impression of proportions equally fair. But he felt that he saw it only by glimpses and that he had not yet stood under the roof. The door was fastened, and though he had keys in his pocket he had a conviction that none of them would fit. 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!" It devolved upon him of course to do the honours of the place. Mr. Touchett was confined to his chair, and his wife's position was that of rather a grim visitor; so that in the line of conduct that opened itself to Ralph duty and inclination were harmoniously mixed. He was not a great walker, but he strolled about the grounds with his cousin--a pastime for which the weather remained favourable with a persistency not allowed for in Isabel's somewhat lugubrious prevision of the climate; and in the long afternoons, of which the length was but the measure of her gratified eagerness, they took a boat on the river, the dear little river, as Isabel called it, where the opposite shore seemed still a part of the foreground of the landscape; or drove over the country in a phaeton--a low, capacious, thick-wheeled phaeton formerly much used by Mr. Touchett, but which he had now ceased to enjoy. Isabel enjoyed it largely and, handling the reins in a manner which approved itself to the groom as "knowing," was never weary of driving her uncle's capital horses through winding lanes and byways full of the rural incidents she had confidently expected to find; past cottages thatched and timbered, past ale-houses latticed and sanded, past patches of ancient common and glimpses of empty parks, between hedgerows made thick by midsummer. When they reached home they usually found tea had been served on the lawn and that Mrs. Touchett had not shrunk from the extremity of handing her husband his cup. But the two for the most part sat silent; the old man with his head back and his eyes closed, his wife occupied with her knitting and wearing that appearance of rare profundity with which some ladies consider the movement of their needles. One day, however, a visitor had arrived. The two young persons, after spending an hour on the river, strolled back to the house and perceived Lord Warburton sitting under the trees and engaged in conversation, of which even at a distance the desultory character was appreciable, with Mrs. Touchett. He had driven over from his own place with a portmanteau and had asked, as the father and son often invited him to do, for a dinner and a lodging. Isabel, seeing him for half an hour on the day of her arrival, had discovered in this brief space that she liked him; he had indeed rather sharply registered himself on her fine sense and she had thought of him several times. She had hoped she should see him again--hoped too that she should see a few others. Gardencourt was not dull; the place itself was sovereign, her uncle was more and more a sort of golden grandfather, and Ralph was unlike any cousin she had ever encountered--her idea of cousins having tended to gloom. Then her impressions were still so fresh and so quickly renewed that there was as yet hardly a hint of vacancy in the view. But Isabel had need to remind herself that she was interested in human nature and that her foremost hope in coming abroad had been that she should see a great many people. When Ralph said to her, as he had done several times, "I wonder you find this endurable; you ought to see some of the neighbours and some of our friends, because we have really got a few, though you would never suppose it"--when he offered to invite what he called a "lot of people" and make her acquainted with English society, she encouraged the hospitable impulse and promised in advance to hurl herself into the fray. Little, however, for the present, had come of his offers, and it may be confided to the reader that if the young man delayed to carry them out it was because he found the labour of providing for his companion by no means so severe as to require extraneous help. Isabel had spoken to him very often about "specimens;" it was a word that played a considerable part in her vocabulary; she had given him to understand that she wished to see English society illustrated by eminent cases. "Well now, there's a specimen," he said to her as they walked up from the riverside and he recognised Lord Warburton. "A specimen of what?" asked the girl. "A specimen of an English gentleman." "Do you mean they're all like him?" "Oh no; they're not all like him." "He's a favourable specimen then," said Isabel; "because I'm sure he's nice." "Yes, he's very nice. And he's very fortunate." The fortunate Lord Warburton exchanged a handshake with our heroine and hoped she was very well. "But I needn't ask that," he said, "since you've been handling the oars." "I've been rowing a little," Isabel answered; "but how should you know it?" "Oh, I know he doesn't row; he's too lazy," said his lordship, indicating Ralph Touchett with a laugh. "He has a good excuse for his laziness," Isabel rejoined, lowering her voice a little. "Ah, he has a good excuse for everything!" cried Lord Warburton, still with his sonorous mirth. "My excuse for not rowing is that my cousin rows so well," said Ralph. "She does everything well. She touches nothing that she doesn't adorn!" "It makes one want to be touched, Miss Archer," Lord Warburton declared. "Be touched in the right sense and you'll never look the worse for it," said Isabel, who, if it pleased her to hear it said that her accomplishments were numerous, was happily able to reflect that such complacency was not the indication of a feeble mind, inasmuch as there were several things in which she excelled. Her desire to think well of herself had at least the element of humility that it always needed to be supported by proof. Lord Warburton not only spent the night at Gardencourt, but he was persuaded to remain over the second day; and when the second day was ended he determined to postpone his departure till the morrow. During this period he addressed many of his remarks to Isabel, who accepted this evidence of his esteem with a very good grace. She found herself liking him extremely; the first impression he had made on her had had weight, but at the end of an evening spent in his society she scarce fell short of seeing him--though quite without luridity--as a hero of romance. She retired to rest with a sense of good fortune, with a quickened consciousness of possible felicities. "It's very nice to know two such charming people as those," she said, meaning by "those" her cousin and her cousin's friend. It must be added moreover that an incident had occurred which might have seemed to put her good-humour to the test. Mr. Touchett went to bed at half-past nine o'clock, but his wife remained in the drawing-room with the other members of the party. She prolonged her vigil for something less than an hour, and then, rising, observed to Isabel that it was time they should bid the gentlemen good-night. Isabel had as yet no desire to go to bed; the occasion wore, to her sense, a festive character, and feasts were not in the habit of terminating so early. So, without further thought, she replied, very simply-- "Need I go, dear aunt? I'll come up in half an hour." "It's impossible I should wait for you," Mrs. Touchett answered. "Ah, you needn't wait! Ralph will light my candle," Isabel gaily engaged. "I'll light your candle; do let me light your candle, Miss Archer!" Lord Warburton exclaimed. "Only I beg it shall not be before midnight." Mrs. Touchett fixed her bright little eyes upon him a moment and transferred them coldly to her niece. "You can't stay alone with the gentlemen. You're not--you're not at your blest Albany, my dear." Isabel rose, blushing. "I wish I were," she said. "Oh, I say, mother!" Ralph broke out. "My dear Mrs. Touchett!" Lord Warburton murmured. "I didn't make your country, my lord," Mrs. Touchett said majestically. "I must take it as I find it." "Can't I stay with my own cousin?" Isabel enquired. "I'm not aware that Lord Warburton is your cousin." "Perhaps I had better go to bed!" the visitor suggested. "That will arrange it." Mrs. Touchett gave a little look of despair and sat down again. "Oh, if it's necessary I'll stay up till midnight." Ralph meanwhile handed Isabel her candlestick. He had been watching her; it had seemed to him her temper was involved--an accident that might be interesting. But if he had expected anything of a flare he was disappointed, for the girl simply laughed a little, nodded good-night and withdrew accompanied by her aunt. For himself he was annoyed at his mother, though he thought she was right. Above-stairs the two ladies separated at Mrs. Touchett's door. Isabel had said nothing on her way up. "Of course you're vexed at my interfering with you," said Mrs. Touchett. Isabel considered. "I'm not vexed, but I'm surprised--and a good deal mystified. Wasn't it proper I should remain in the drawing-room?" "Not in the least. Young girls here--in decent houses--don't sit alone with the gentlemen late at night." "You were very right to tell me then," said Isabel. "I don't understand it, but I'm very glad to know it. "I shall always tell you," her aunt answered, "whenever I see you taking what seems to me too much liberty." "Pray do; but I don't say I shall always think your remonstrance just." "Very likely not. You're too fond of your own ways." "Yes, I think I'm very fond of them. But I always want to know the things one shouldn't do." "So as to do them?" asked her aunt. "So as to choose," said Isabel.

As interested as Isabel is in English society, she has seen very little of it. Mrs. Touchett has few contacts in the neighborhood, and Mr. Touchett and Ralph are accustomed to keeping to themselves. Lord Warburton is the lone exception. Mrs. Touchett is too funny - she doesn't visit anyone in the neighborhood herself, but she does love it when people visit her and leave their calling cards. Isabel asks her aunt what her national identity is. She claims that her point of view is distinctly American, but Mrs. Touchett's is neither American nor English. Mrs. Touchett responds that her point of view is personal and not assigned to a nation. Isabel sees the sense in this. Isabel aligns herself so much as an American that Ralph jokingly draws a picture of her as Columbia wrapped up in the American flag. Isabel doubts that Ralph really cares about anything, since he jokes so much and criticizes most things. Ralph says that he cares about her alone. It turns out that he's not completely joking about this. Ralph has worried ever since Mr. Touchett's gout has gotten worse. He cannot bear the thought of living without his father, and has been paranoid ever since. Isabel's presence, however, is a bright spot in his life. Ralph has decided, however, that he doesn't have the hots for Isabel. He just thinks she's fascinating and enjoys spending time with her. He compares her arrival to the surprise delivery of a precious Titian painting in the mail. Ralph is Isabel's tour guide, especially since neither of his parents take on the role . They go by horse and boat through the local countryside, with Isabel taking the reins, literally and figuratively, on their adventures. One day, upon their return, they find Lord Warburton chatting with Mrs. Touchett in the garden. Isabel had decided, upon first meeting Lord Warburton, that she liked him. Who wouldn't? He's a generally great guy, as far as all of us can tell. Lord Warburton stays overnight at Gardencourt for a couple of days, clearly lured in by Isabel's company. One night, Ralph, Isabel, Lord Warburton and Mrs. Touchett are in the drawing room. Mrs. Touchett gets up to retire for the night and expects Isabel to follow her. Isabel says she would rather not, since she's having such fun with the guys. Mrs. Touchett puts on a martyr act and says she'll stay up too, if she must. Isabel, confused, doesn't get what her aunt means by all of this. They have a little spat - Mrs. Touchett reminds Isabel that she's not in Albany anymore. Isabel gives in and says she'll go to bed. Mrs. Touchett explains to Isabel that, in England, proper ladies are not supposed to stay up at night alone with men. This is news to Isabel, and she asks that her aunt always tell her of different social standards she might not know about. Mrs. Touchett asks Isabel if she only wants to know about the rules just so she can rebel against them. Isabel coolly says that she would like to choose whether to obey or not.

summary

As she was devoted to romantic effects Lord Warburton ventured to express a hope that she would come some day and see his house, a very curious old place. He extracted from Mrs. Touchett a promise that she would bring her niece to Lockleigh, and Ralph signified his willingness to attend the ladies if his father should be able to spare him. Lord Warburton assured our heroine that in the mean time his sisters would come and see her. She knew something about his sisters, having sounded him, during the hours they spent together while he was at Gardencourt, on many points connected with his family. When Isabel was interested she asked a great many questions, and as her companion was a copious talker she urged him on this occasion by no means in vain. He told her he had four sisters and two brothers and had lost both his parents. The brothers and sisters were very good people--"not particularly clever, you know," he said, "but very decent and pleasant;" and he was so good as to hope Miss Archer might know them well. One of the brothers was in the Church, settled in the family living, that of Lockleigh, which was a heavy, sprawling parish, and was an excellent fellow in spite of his thinking differently from himself on every conceivable topic. And then Lord Warburton mentioned some of the opinions held by his brother, which were opinions Isabel had often heard expressed and that she supposed to be entertained by a considerable portion of the human family. Many of them indeed she supposed she had held herself, till he assured her she was quite mistaken, that it was really impossible, that she had doubtless imagined she entertained them, but that she might depend that, if she thought them over a little, she would find there was nothing in them. When she answered that she had already thought several of the questions involved over very attentively he declared that she was only another example of what he had often been struck with--the fact that, of all the people in the world, the Americans were the most grossly superstitious. They were rank Tories and bigots, every one of them; there were no conservatives like American conservatives. Her uncle and her cousin were there to prove it; nothing could be more medieval than many of their views; they had ideas that people in England nowadays were ashamed to confess to; and they had the impudence moreover, said his lordship, laughing, to pretend they knew more about the needs and dangers of this poor dear stupid old England than he who was born in it and owned a considerable slice of it--the more shame to him! From all of which Isabel gathered that Lord Warburton was a nobleman of the newest pattern, a reformer, a radical, a contemner of ancient ways. His other brother, who was in the army in India, was rather wild and pig-headed and had not been of much use as yet but to make debts for Warburton to pay--one of the most precious privileges of an elder brother. "I don't think I shall pay any more," said her friend; "he lives a monstrous deal better than I do, enjoys unheard-of luxuries and thinks himself a much finer gentleman than I. As I'm a consistent radical I go in only for equality; I don't go in for the superiority of the younger brothers." Two of his four sisters, the second and fourth, were married, one of them having done very well, as they said, the other only so-so. The husband of the elder, Lord Haycock, was a very good fellow, but unfortunately a horrid Tory; and his wife, like all good English wives, was worse than her husband. The other had espoused a smallish squire in Norfolk and, though married but the other day, had already five children. This information and much more Lord Warburton imparted to his young American listener, taking pains to make many things clear and to lay bare to her apprehension the peculiarities of English life. Isabel was often amused at his explicitness and at the small allowance he seemed to make either for her own experience or for her imagination. "He thinks I'm a barbarian," she said, "and that I've never seen forks and spoons;" and she used to ask him artless questions for the pleasure of hearing him answer seriously. Then when he had fallen into the trap, "It's a pity you can't see me in my war-paint and feathers," she remarked; "if I had known how kind you are to the poor savages I would have brought over my native costume!" Lord Warburton had travelled through the United States and knew much more about them than Isabel; he was so good as to say that America was the most charming country in the world, but his recollections of it appeared to encourage the idea that Americans in England would need to have a great many things explained to them. "If I had only had you to explain things to me in America!" he said. "I was rather puzzled in your country; in fact I was quite bewildered, and the trouble was that the explanations only puzzled me more. You know I think they often gave me the wrong ones on purpose; they're rather clever about that over there. But when I explain you can trust me; about what I tell you there's no mistake." There was no mistake at least about his being very intelligent and cultivated and knowing almost everything in the world. Although he gave the most interesting and thrilling glimpses Isabel felt he never did it to exhibit himself, and though he had had rare chances and had tumbled in, as she put it, for high prizes, he was as far as possible from making a merit of it. He had enjoyed the best things of life, but they had not spoiled his sense of proportion. His quality was a mixture of the effect of rich experience--oh, so easily come by!--with a modesty at times almost boyish; the sweet and wholesome savour of which--it was as agreeable as something tasted--lost nothing from the addition of a tone of responsible kindness. "I like your specimen English gentleman very much," Isabel said to Ralph after Lord Warburton had gone. "I like him too--I love him well," Ralph returned. "But I pity him more." Isabel looked at him askance. "Why, that seems to me his only fault--that one can't pity him a little. He appears to have everything, to know everything, to be everything." "Oh, he's in a bad way!" Ralph insisted. "I suppose you don't mean in health?" "No, as to that he's detestably sound. What I mean is that he's a man with a great position who's playing all sorts of tricks with it. He doesn't take himself seriously." "Does he regard himself as a joke?" "Much worse; he regards himself as an imposition--as an abuse." "Well, perhaps he is," said Isabel. "Perhaps he is--though on the whole I don't think so. But in that case what's more pitiable than a sentient, self-conscious abuse planted by other hands, deeply rooted but aching with a sense of its injustice? For me, in his place, I could be as solemn as a statue of Buddha. He occupies a position that appeals to my imagination. Great responsibilities, great opportunities, great consideration, great wealth, great power, a natural share in the public affairs of a great country. But he's all in a muddle about himself, his position, his power, and indeed about everything in the world. He's the victim of a critical age; he has ceased to believe in himself and he doesn't know what to believe in. When I attempt to tell him (because if I were he I know very well what I should believe in) he calls me a pampered bigot. I believe he seriously thinks me an awful Philistine; he says I don't understand my time. I understand it certainly better than he, who can neither abolish himself as a nuisance nor maintain himself as an institution." "He doesn't look very wretched," Isabel observed. "Possibly not; though, being a man of a good deal of charming taste, I think he often has uncomfortable hours. But what is it to say of a being of his opportunities that he's not miserable? Besides, I believe he is." "I don't," said Isabel. "Well," her cousin rejoined, "if he isn't he ought to be!" In the afternoon she spent an hour with her uncle on the lawn, where the old man sat, as usual, with his shawl over his legs and his large cup of diluted tea in his hands. In the course of conversation he asked her what she thought of their late visitor. Isabel was prompt. "I think he's charming." "He's a nice person," said Mr. Touchett, "but I don't recommend you to fall in love with him." "I shall not do it then; I shall never fall in love but on your recommendation. Moreover," Isabel added, "my cousin gives me rather a sad account of Lord Warburton." "Oh, indeed? I don't know what there may be to say, but you must remember that Ralph must talk." "He thinks your friend's too subversive--or not subversive enough! I don't quite understand which," said Isabel. The old man shook his head slowly, smiled and put down his cup. "I don't know which either. He goes very far, but it's quite possible he doesn't go far enough. He seems to want to do away with a good many things, but he seems to want to remain himself. I suppose that's natural, but it's rather inconsistent." "Oh, I hope he'll remain himself," said Isabel. "If he were to be done away with his friends would miss him sadly." "Well," said the old man, "I guess he'll stay and amuse his friends. I should certainly miss him very much here at Gardencourt. He always amuses me when he comes over, and I think he amuses himself as well. There's a considerable number like him, round in society; they're very fashionable just now. I don't know what they're trying to do--whether they're trying to get up a revolution. I hope at any rate they'll put it off till after I'm gone. You see they want to disestablish everything; but I'm a pretty big landowner here, and I don't want to be disestablished. I wouldn't have come over if I had thought they were going to behave like that," Mr. Touchett went on with expanding hilarity. "I came over because I thought England was a safe country. I call it a regular fraud if they are going to introduce any considerable changes; there'll be a large number disappointed in that case." "Oh, I do hope they'll make a revolution!" Isabel exclaimed. "I should delight in seeing a revolution." "Let me see," said her uncle, with a humorous intention; "I forget whether you're on the side of the old or on the side of the new. I've heard you take such opposite views." "I'm on the side of both. I guess I'm a little on the side of everything. In a revolution--after it was well begun--I think I should be a high, proud loyalist. One sympathises more with them, and they've a chance to behave so exquisitely. I mean so picturesquely." "I don't know that I understand what you mean by behaving picturesquely, but it seems to me that you do that always, my dear." "Oh, you lovely man, if I could believe that!" the girl interrupted. "I'm afraid, after all, you won't have the pleasure of going gracefully to the guillotine here just now," Mr. Touchett went on. "If you want to see a big outbreak you must pay us a long visit. You see, when you come to the point it wouldn't suit them to be taken at their word." "Of whom are you speaking?" "Well, I mean Lord Warburton and his friends--the radicals of the upper class. Of course I only know the way it strikes me. They talk about the changes, but I don't think they quite realise. You and I, you know, we know what it is to have lived under democratic institutions: I always thought them very comfortable, but I was used to them from the first. And then I ain't a lord; you're a lady, my dear, but I ain't a lord. Now over here I don't think it quite comes home to them. It's a matter of every day and every hour, and I don't think many of them would find it as pleasant as what they've got. Of course if they want to try, it's their own business; but I expect they won't try very hard." "Don't you think they're sincere?" Isabel asked. "Well, they want to FEEL earnest," Mr. Touchett allowed; "but it seems as if they took it out in theories mostly. Their radical views are a kind of amusement; they've got to have some amusement, and they might have coarser tastes than that. You see they're very luxurious, and these progressive ideas are about their biggest luxury. They make them feel moral and yet don't damage their position. They think a great deal of their position; don't let one of them ever persuade you he doesn't, for if you were to proceed on that basis you'd be pulled up very short." Isabel followed her uncle's argument, which he unfolded with his quaint distinctness, most attentively, and though she was unacquainted with the British aristocracy she found it in harmony with her general impressions of human nature. But she felt moved to put in a protest on Lord Warburton's behalf. "I don't believe Lord Warburton's a humbug; I don't care what the others are. I should like to see Lord Warburton put to the test." "Heaven deliver me from my friends!" Mr. Touchett answered. "Lord Warburton's a very amiable young man--a very fine young man. He has a hundred thousand a year. He owns fifty thousand acres of the soil of this little island and ever so many other things besides. He has half a dozen houses to live in. He has a seat in Parliament as I have one at my own dinner-table. He has elegant tastes--cares for literature, for art, for science, for charming young ladies. The most elegant is his taste for the new views. It affords him a great deal of pleasure--more perhaps than anything else, except the young ladies. His old house over there--what does he call it, Lockleigh?--is very attractive; but I don't think it's as pleasant as this. That doesn't matter, however--he has so many others. His views don't hurt any one as far as I can see; they certainly don't hurt himself. And if there were to be a revolution he would come off very easily. They wouldn't touch him, they'd leave him as he is: he's too much liked." "Ah, he couldn't be a martyr even if he wished!" Isabel sighed. "That's a very poor position." "He'll never be a martyr unless you make him one," said the old man. Isabel shook her head; there might have been something laughable in the fact that she did it with a touch of melancholy. "I shall never make any one a martyr." "You'll never be one, I hope." "I hope not. But you don't pity Lord Warburton then as Ralph does?" Her uncle looked at her a while with genial acuteness. "Yes, I do, after all!"

Lord Warburton invites Isabel over to his estate, Lockleigh. Mrs. Touchett and Ralph plan to go, too. Lord Warburton plans to have two of his sisters come and visit Isabel in the meanwhile. Lord Warburton has already given Isabel the run-down on his family: he has two brothers and four sisters, two unmarried and two married. Ralph and Isabel discuss Lord Warburton. To Isabel's surprise, Ralph expresses his pity for Lord Warburton. He thinks Lord Warburton is miserable because, amidst his luxuries, he doesn't know what he should be. Mr. Touchett brings Lord Warburton up when he sits with Isabel in the afternoon. He warns her not to fall in love with him, and she says she would only fall in love with someone he approves of. Mr. Touchett hopes that people like Lord Warburton, whose politics are rather radical, wait until he's dead to start a revolution in England. Isabel is, of course, excited by the idea of a revolution, and hopes that she'll be able to witness it. Mr. Touchett lists all of Lord Warburton's most prestigious social roles and says that, even if there were a revolution, no one would hurt Lord Warburton because everyone's too fond of him. Isabel thinks that it's a pity that Lord Warburton couldn't be a martyr, even if he got the chance. Mr. Touchett decides that he does have reason to pity Lord Warburton after all.

summary

The two Misses Molyneux, this nobleman's sisters, came presently to call upon her, and Isabel took a fancy to the young ladies, who appeared to her to show a most original stamp. It is true that when she described them to her cousin by that term he declared that no epithet could be less applicable than this to the two Misses Molyneux, since there were fifty thousand young women in England who exactly resembled them. Deprived of this advantage, however, Isabel's visitors retained that of an extreme sweetness and shyness of demeanour, and of having, as she thought, eyes like the balanced basins, the circles of "ornamental water," set, in parterres, among the geraniums. "They're not morbid, at any rate, whatever they are," our heroine said to herself; and she deemed this a great charm, for two or three of the friends of her girlhood had been regrettably open to the charge (they would have been so nice without it), to say nothing of Isabel's having occasionally suspected it as a tendency of her own. The Misses Molyneux were not in their first youth, but they had bright, fresh complexions and something of the smile of childhood. Yes, their eyes, which Isabel admired, were round, quiet and contented, and their figures, also of a generous roundness, were encased in sealskin jackets. Their friendliness was great, so great that they were almost embarrassed to show it; they seemed somewhat afraid of the young lady from the other side of the world and rather looked than spoke their good wishes. But they made it clear to her that they hoped she would come to luncheon at Lockleigh, where they lived with their brother, and then they might see her very, very often. They wondered if she wouldn't come over some day, and sleep: they were expecting some people on the twenty-ninth, so perhaps she would come while the people were there. "I'm afraid it isn't any one very remarkable," said the elder sister; "but I dare say you'll take us as you find us." "I shall find you delightful; I think you're enchanting just as you are," replied Isabel, who often praised profusely. Her visitors flushed, and her cousin told her, after they were gone, that if she said such things to those poor girls they would think she was in some wild, free manner practising on them: he was sure it was the first time they had been called enchanting. "I can't help it," Isabel answered. "I think it's lovely to be so quiet and reasonable and satisfied. I should like to be like that." "Heaven forbid!" cried Ralph with ardour. "I mean to try and imitate them," said Isabel. "I want very much to see them at home." She had this pleasure a few days later, when, with Ralph and his mother, she drove over to Lockleigh. She found the Misses Molyneux sitting in a vast drawing-room (she perceived afterwards it was one of several) in a wilderness of faded chintz; they were dressed on this occasion in black velveteen. Isabel liked them even better at home than she had done at Gardencourt, and was more than ever struck with the fact that they were not morbid. It had seemed to her before that if they had a fault it was a want of play of mind; but she presently saw they were capable of deep emotion. Before luncheon she was alone with them for some time, on one side of the room, while Lord Warburton, at a distance, talked to Mrs. Touchett. "Is it true your brother's such a great radical?" Isabel asked. She knew it was true, but we have seen that her interest in human nature was keen, and she had a desire to draw the Misses Molyneux out. "Oh dear, yes; he's immensely advanced," said Mildred, the younger sister. "At the same time Warburton's very reasonable," Miss Molyneux observed. Isabel watched him a moment at the other side of the room; he was clearly trying hard to make himself agreeable to Mrs. Touchett. Ralph had met the frank advances of one of the dogs before the fire that the temperature of an English August, in the ancient expanses, had not made an impertinence. "Do you suppose your brother's sincere?" Isabel enquired with a smile. "Oh, he must be, you know!" Mildred exclaimed quickly, while the elder sister gazed at our heroine in silence. "Do you think he would stand the test?" "The test?" "I mean for instance having to give up all this." "Having to give up Lockleigh?" said Miss Molyneux, finding her voice. "Yes, and the other places; what are they called?" The two sisters exchanged an almost frightened glance. "Do you mean--do you mean on account of the expense?" the younger one asked. "I dare say he might let one or two of his houses," said the other. "Let them for nothing?" Isabel demanded. "I can't fancy his giving up his property," said Miss Molyneux. "Ah, I'm afraid he is an impostor!" Isabel returned. "Don't you think it's a false position?" Her companions, evidently, had lost themselves. "My brother's position?" Miss Molyneux enquired. "It's thought a very good position," said the younger sister. "It's the first position in this part of the county." "I dare say you think me very irreverent," Isabel took occasion to remark. "I suppose you revere your brother and are rather afraid of him." "Of course one looks up to one's brother," said Miss Molyneux simply. "If you do that he must be very good--because you, evidently, are beautifully good." "He's most kind. It will never be known, the good he does." "His ability is known," Mildred added; "every one thinks it's immense." "Oh, I can see that," said Isabel. "But if I were he I should wish to fight to the death: I mean for the heritage of the past. I should hold it tight." "I think one ought to be liberal," Mildred argued gently. "We've always been so, even from the earliest times." "Ah well," said Isabel, "you've made a great success of it; I don't wonder you like it. I see you're very fond of crewels." When Lord Warburton showed her the house, after luncheon, it seemed to her a matter of course that it should be a noble picture. Within, it had been a good deal modernised--some of its best points had lost their purity; but as they saw it from the gardens, a stout grey pile, of the softest, deepest, most weather-fretted hue, rising from a broad, still moat, it affected the young visitor as a castle in a legend. The day was cool and rather lustreless; the first note of autumn had been struck, and the watery sunshine rested on the walls in blurred and desultory gleams, washing them, as it were, in places tenderly chosen, where the ache of antiquity was keenest. Her host's brother, the Vicar, had come to luncheon, and Isabel had had five minutes' talk with him--time enough to institute a search for a rich ecclesiasticism and give it up as vain. The marks of the Vicar of Lockleigh were a big, athletic figure, a candid, natural countenance, a capacious appetite and a tendency to indiscriminate laughter. Isabel learned afterwards from her cousin that before taking orders he had been a mighty wrestler and that he was still, on occasion--in the privacy of the family circle as it were--quite capable of flooring his man. Isabel liked him--she was in the mood for liking everything; but her imagination was a good deal taxed to think of him as a source of spiritual aid. The whole party, on leaving lunch, went to walk in the grounds; but Lord Warburton exercised some ingenuity in engaging his least familiar guest in a stroll apart from the others. "I wish you to see the place properly, seriously," he said. "You can't do so if your attention is distracted by irrelevant gossip." His own conversation (though he told Isabel a good deal about the house, which had a very curious history) was not purely archaeological; he reverted at intervals to matters more personal--matters personal to the young lady as well as to himself. But at last, after a pause of some duration, returning for a moment to their ostensible theme, "Ah, well," he said, "I'm very glad indeed you like the old barrack. I wish you could see more of it--that you could stay here a while. My sisters have taken an immense fancy to you--if that would be any inducement." "There's no want of inducements," Isabel answered; "but I'm afraid I can't make engagements. I'm quite in my aunt's hands." "Ah, pardon me if I say I don't exactly believe that. I'm pretty sure you can do whatever you want." "I'm sorry if I make that impression on you; I don't think it's a nice impression to make." "It has the merit of permitting me to hope." And Lord Warburton paused a moment. "To hope what?" "That in future I may see you often." "Ah," said Isabel, "to enjoy that pleasure I needn't be so terribly emancipated." "Doubtless not; and yet, at the same time, I don't think your uncle likes me." "You're very much mistaken. I've heard him speak very highly of you." "I'm glad you have talked about me," said Lord Warburton. "But, I nevertheless don't think he'd like me to keep coming to Gardencourt." "I can't answer for my uncle's tastes," the girl rejoined, "though I ought as far as possible to take them into account. But for myself I shall be very glad to see you." "Now that's what I like to hear you say. I'm charmed when you say that." "You're easily charmed, my lord," said Isabel. "No, I'm not easily charmed!" And then he stopped a moment. "But you've charmed me, Miss Archer." These words were uttered with an indefinable sound which startled the girl; it struck her as the prelude to something grave: she had heard the sound before and she recognised it. She had no wish, however, that for the moment such a prelude should have a sequel, and she said as gaily as possible and as quickly as an appreciable degree of agitation would allow her: "I'm afraid there's no prospect of my being able to come here again." "Never?" said Lord Warburton. "I won't say 'never'; I should feel very melodramatic." "May I come and see you then some day next week?" "Most assuredly. What is there to prevent it?" "Nothing tangible. But with you I never feel safe. I've a sort of sense that you're always summing people up." "You don't of necessity lose by that." "It's very kind of you to say so; but, even if I gain, stern justice is not what I most love. Is Mrs. Touchett going to take you abroad?" "I hope so." "Is England not good enough for you?" "That's a very Machiavellian speech; it doesn't deserve an answer. I want to see as many countries as I can." "Then you'll go on judging, I suppose." "Enjoying, I hope, too." "Yes, that's what you enjoy most; I can't make out what you're up to," said Lord Warburton. "You strike me as having mysterious purposes--vast designs." "You're so good as to have a theory about me which I don't at all fill out. Is there anything mysterious in a purpose entertained and executed every year, in the most public manner, by fifty thousand of my fellow-countrymen--the purpose of improving one's mind by foreign travel?" "You can't improve your mind, Miss Archer," her companion declared. "It's already a most formidable instrument. It looks down on us all; it despises us." "Despises you? You're making fun of me," said Isabel seriously. "Well, you think us 'quaint'--that's the same thing. I won't be thought 'quaint,' to begin with; I'm not so in the least. I protest." "That protest is one of the quaintest things I've ever heard," Isabel answered with a smile. Lord Warburton was briefly silent. "You judge only from the outside--you don't care," he said presently. "You only care to amuse yourself." The note she had heard in his voice a moment before reappeared, and mixed with it now was an audible strain of bitterness--a bitterness so abrupt and inconsequent that the girl was afraid she had hurt him. She had often heard that the English are a highly eccentric people, and she had even read in some ingenious author that they are at bottom the most romantic of races. Was Lord Warburton suddenly turning romantic--was he going to make her a scene, in his own house, only the third time they had met? She was reassured quickly enough by her sense of his great good manners, which was not impaired by the fact that he had already touched the furthest limit of good taste in expressing his admiration of a young lady who had confided in his hospitality. She was right in trusting to his good manners, for he presently went on, laughing a little and without a trace of the accent that had discomposed her: "I don't mean of course that you amuse yourself with trifles. You select great materials; the foibles, the afflictions of human nature, the peculiarities of nations!" "As regards that," said Isabel, "I should find in my own nation entertainment for a lifetime. But we've a long drive, and my aunt will soon wish to start." She turned back toward the others and Lord Warburton walked beside her in silence. But before they reached the others, "I shall come and see you next week," he said. She had received an appreciable shock, but as it died away she felt that she couldn't pretend to herself that it was altogether a painful one. Nevertheless she made answer to his declaration, coldly enough, "Just as you please." And her coldness was not the calculation of her effect--a game she played in a much smaller degree than would have seemed probable to many critics. It came from a certain fear.

Lord Warburton's unmarried sisters, the genteel Misses Molyneux, visit Gardencourt. Isabel is taken by them, appreciating their friendliness and lack of morbidity. The two sisters invite Isabel to Lockleigh for lunch. Isabel accepts, complimenting the sisters. Isabel tells Ralph that she'd like to be more like the two sisters, who are more "quiet and reasonable and satisfied" . Ralph hopes just the opposite. Isabel, Ralph, and Mrs. Touchett visit Lockleigh a few days later. Isabel talks with the two sisters about Lord Warburton's stance as a radical. Isabel seems dissatisfied with the image the Misses Molyneux paint of Lord Warburton; she wants to hear that Lord Warburton would sacrifice his houses and comforts for the cause. Their brother, the Vicar of Lockleigh, visits for lunch. He's a ruddy, genial former wrestler, and Isabel has a hard time imagining him as a religious official. The whole crew goes for a walk outside, but Lord Warburton walks with Isabel separately. Lord Warburton asks Isabel to visit Lockleigh more often. Isabel says that such arrangements are up to Mrs. Touchett. Lord Warburton thinks this is a coy act - and that Isabel can act for herself. Lord Warburton thinks that Mr. Touchett would not like for him to keep visiting Gardencourt, so it would be better for Isabel to visit him at Lockleigh. Lord Warburton says that Isabel charms him. He says it in a way that makes Isabel a little nervous , so she tells him that she won't return to Lockleigh. Persistent, Lord Warburton says that he will visit her at Gardencourt next week. Lord Warburton accuses Isabel of judging people. Isabel hears bitterness in his tone, and she thinks of the books she's read, which say that English people are the most romantic people. Before they rejoin the group, Lord Warburton says that he will visit Isabel next week. Isabel is surprised at his behavior. She's flattered by it, but also feels nervous.

summary

The day after her visit to Lockleigh she received a note from her friend Miss Stackpole--a note of which the envelope, exhibiting in conjunction the postmark of Liverpool and the neat calligraphy of the quick-fingered Henrietta, caused her some liveliness of emotion. "Here I am, my lovely friend," Miss Stackpole wrote; "I managed to get off at last. I decided only the night before I left New York--the Interviewer having come round to my figure. I put a few things into a bag, like a veteran journalist, and came down to the steamer in a street-car. Where are you and where can we meet? I suppose you're visiting at some castle or other and have already acquired the correct accent. Perhaps even you have married a lord; I almost hope you have, for I want some introductions to the first people and shall count on you for a few. The Interviewer wants some light on the nobility. My first impressions (of the people at large) are not rose-coloured; but I wish to talk them over with you, and you know that, whatever I am, at least I'm not superficial. I've also something very particular to tell you. Do appoint a meeting as quickly as you can; come to London (I should like so much to visit the sights with you) or else let me come to you, wherever you are. I will do so with pleasure; for you know everything interests me and I wish to see as much as possible of the inner life." Isabel judged best not to show this letter to her uncle; but she acquainted him with its purport, and, as she expected, he begged her instantly to assure Miss Stackpole, in his name, that he should be delighted to receive her at Gardencourt. "Though she's a literary lady," he said, "I suppose that, being an American, she won't show me up, as that other one did. She has seen others like me." "She has seen no other so delightful!" Isabel answered; but she was not altogether at ease about Henrietta's reproductive instincts, which belonged to that side of her friend's character which she regarded with least complacency. She wrote to Miss Stackpole, however, that she would be very welcome under Mr. Touchett's roof; and this alert young woman lost no time in announcing her prompt approach. She had gone up to London, and it was from that centre that she took the train for the station nearest to Gardencourt, where Isabel and Ralph were in waiting to receive her. "Shall I love her or shall I hate her?" Ralph asked while they moved along the platform. "Whichever you do will matter very little to her," said Isabel. "She doesn't care a straw what men think of her." "As a man I'm bound to dislike her then. She must be a kind of monster. Is she very ugly?" "No, she's decidedly pretty." "A female interviewer--a reporter in petticoats? I'm very curious to see her," Ralph conceded. "It's very easy to laugh at her but it is not easy to be as brave as she." "I should think not; crimes of violence and attacks on the person require more or less pluck. Do you suppose she'll interview me?" "Never in the world. She'll not think you of enough importance." "You'll see," said Ralph. "She'll send a description of us all, including Bunchie, to her newspaper." "I shall ask her not to," Isabel answered. "You think she's capable of it then?" "Perfectly." "And yet you've made her your bosom-friend?" "I've not made her my bosom-friend; but I like her in spite of her faults." "Ah well," said Ralph, "I'm afraid I shall dislike her in spite of her merits." "You'll probably fall in love with her at the end of three days." "And have my love-letters published in the Interviewer? Never!" cried the young man. The train presently arrived, and Miss Stackpole, promptly descending, proved, as Isabel had promised, quite delicately, even though rather provincially, fair. She was a neat, plump person, of medium stature, with a round face, a small mouth, a delicate complexion, a bunch of light brown ringlets at the back of her head and a peculiarly open, surprised-looking eye. The most striking point in her appearance was the remarkable fixedness of this organ, which rested without impudence or defiance, but as if in conscientious exercise of a natural right, upon every object it happened to encounter. It rested in this manner upon Ralph himself, a little arrested by Miss Stackpole's gracious and comfortable aspect, which hinted that it wouldn't be so easy as he had assumed to disapprove of her. 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. She answered the enquiries made of her by Isabel, however, and in which the young man ventured to join, with copious lucidity; and later, in the library at Gardencourt, when she had made the acquaintance of Mr. Touchett (his wife not having thought it necessary to appear) did more to give the measure of her confidence in her powers. "Well, I should like to know whether you consider yourselves American or English," she broke out. "If once I knew I could talk to you accordingly." "Talk to us anyhow and we shall be thankful," Ralph liberally answered. She fixed her eyes on him, and there was something in their character that reminded him of large polished buttons--buttons that might have fixed the elastic loops of some tense receptacle: he seemed to see the reflection of surrounding objects on the pupil. The expression of a button is not usually deemed human, but there was something in Miss Stackpole's gaze that made him, as a very modest man, feel vaguely embarrassed--less inviolate, more dishonoured, than he liked. This sensation, it must be added, after he had spent a day or two in her company, sensibly diminished, though it never wholly lapsed. "I don't suppose that you're going to undertake to persuade me that you're an American," she said. "To please you I'll be an Englishman, I'll be a Turk!" "Well, if you can change about that way you're very welcome," Miss Stackpole returned. "I'm sure you understand everything and that differences of nationality are no barrier to you," Ralph went on. Miss Stackpole gazed at him still. "Do you mean the foreign languages?" "The languages are nothing. I mean the spirit--the genius." "I'm not sure that I understand you," said the correspondent of the Interviewer; "but I expect I shall before I leave." "He's what's called a cosmopolite," Isabel suggested. "That means he's a little of everything and not much of any. I must say I think patriotism is like charity--it begins at home." "Ah, but where does home begin, Miss Stackpole?" Ralph enquired. "I don't know where it begins, but I know where it ends. It ended a long time before I got here." "Don't you like it over here?" asked Mr. Touchett with his aged, innocent voice. "Well, sir, I haven't quite made up my mind what ground I shall take. I feel a good deal cramped. I felt it on the journey from Liverpool to London." "Perhaps you were in a crowded carriage," Ralph suggested. "Yes, but it was crowded with friends--party of Americans whose acquaintance I had made upon the steamer; a lovely group from Little Rock, Arkansas. In spite of that I felt cramped--I felt something pressing upon me; I couldn't tell what it was. I felt at the very commencement as if I were not going to accord with the atmosphere. But I suppose I shall make my own atmosphere. That's the true way--then you can breathe. Your surroundings seem very attractive." "Ah, we too are a lovely group!" said Ralph. "Wait a little and you'll see." Miss Stackpole showed every disposition to wait and evidently was prepared to make a considerable stay at Gardencourt. She occupied herself in the mornings with literary labour; but in spite of this Isabel spent many hours with her friend, who, once her daily task performed, deprecated, in fact defied, isolation. Isabel speedily found occasion to desire her to desist from celebrating the charms of their common sojourn in print, having discovered, on the second morning of Miss Stackpole's visit, that she was engaged on a letter to the Interviewer, of which the title, in her exquisitely neat and legible hand (exactly that of the copybooks which our heroine remembered at school) was "Americans and Tudors--Glimpses of Gardencourt." Miss Stackpole, with the best conscience in the world, offered to read her letter to Isabel, who immediately put in her protest. "I don't think you ought to do that. I don't think you ought to describe the place." Henrietta gazed at her as usual. "Why, it's just what the people want, and it's a lovely place." "It's too lovely to be put in the newspapers, and it's not what my uncle wants." "Don't you believe that!" cried Henrietta. "They're always delighted afterwards." "My uncle won't be delighted--nor my cousin either. They'll consider it a breach of hospitality." Miss Stackpole showed no sense of confusion; she simply wiped her pen, very neatly, upon an elegant little implement which she kept for the purpose, and put away her manuscript. "Of course if you don't approve I won't do it; but I sacrifice a beautiful subject." "There are plenty of other subjects, there are subjects all round you. We'll take some drives; I'll show you some charming scenery." "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." "He would have died of it!" Isabel exclaimed. "Not of the severity, but of the publicity." "Well, I should have liked to kill him a little. And I should have delighted to do your uncle, who seems to me a much nobler type--the American faithful still. He's a grand old man; I don't see how he can object to my paying him honour." Isabel looked at her companion in much wonderment; it struck her as strange that a nature in which she found so much to esteem should break down so in spots. "My poor Henrietta," she said, "you've no sense of privacy." Henrietta coloured deeply, and for a moment her brilliant eyes were suffused, while Isabel found her more than ever inconsequent. "You do me great injustice," said Miss Stackpole with dignity. "I've never written a word about myself!" "I'm very sure of that; but it seems to me one should be modest for others also!" "Ah, that's very good!" cried Henrietta, seizing her pen again. "Just let me make a note of it and I'll put it in somewhere." she was a thoroughly good-natured woman, and half an hour later she was in as cheerful a mood as should have been looked for in a newspaper-lady in want of matter. "I've promised to do the social side," she said to Isabel; "and how can I do it unless I get ideas? If I can't describe this place don't you know some place I can describe?" Isabel promised she would bethink herself, and the next day, in conversation with her friend, she happened to mention her visit to Lord Warburton's ancient house. "Ah, you must take me there--that's just the place for me!" Miss Stackpole cried. "I must get a glimpse of the nobility." "I can't take you," said Isabel; "but Lord Warburton's coming here, and you'll have a chance to see him and observe him. Only if you intend to repeat his conversation I shall certainly give him warning." "Don't do that," her companion pleaded; "I want him to be natural." "An Englishman's never so natural as when he's holding his tongue," Isabel declared. It was not apparent, at the end of three days, that her cousin had, according to her prophecy, lost his heart to their visitor, though he had spent a good deal of time in her society. They strolled about the park together and sat under the trees, and in the afternoon, when it was delightful to float along the Thames, Miss Stackpole occupied a place in the boat in which hitherto Ralph had had but a single companion. Her presence proved somehow less irreducible to soft particles than Ralph had expected in the natural perturbation of his sense of the perfect solubility of that of his cousin; for the correspondent of the Interviewer prompted mirth in him, and he had long since decided that the crescendo of mirth should be the flower of his declining days. Henrietta, on her side, failed a little to justify Isabel's declaration with regard to her indifference to masculine opinion; for poor Ralph appeared to have presented himself to her as an irritating problem, which it would be almost immoral not to work out. "What does he do for a living?" she asked of Isabel the evening of her arrival. "Does he go round all day with his hands in his pockets?" "He does nothing," smiled Isabel; "he's a gentleman of large leisure." "Well, I call that a shame--when I have to work like a car-conductor," Miss Stackpole replied. "I should like to show him up." "He's in wretched health; he's quite unfit for work," Isabel urged. "Pshaw! don't you believe it. I work when I'm sick," cried her friend. Later, when she stepped into the boat on joining the water-party, she remarked to Ralph that she supposed he hated her and would like to drown her. "Ah no," said Ralph, "I keep my victims for a slower torture. And you'd be such an interesting one!" "Well, you do torture me; I may say that. But I shock all your prejudices; that's one comfort." "My prejudices? I haven't a prejudice to bless myself with. There's intellectual poverty for you." "The more shame to you; I've some delicious ones. Of course I spoil your flirtation, or whatever it is you call it, with your cousin; but I don't care for that, as I render her the service of drawing you out. She'll see how thin you are." "Ah, do draw me out!" Ralph exclaimed. "So few people will take the trouble." Miss Stackpole, in this undertaking, appeared to shrink from no effort; resorting largely, whenever the opportunity offered, to the natural expedient of interrogation. On the following day the weather was bad, and in the afternoon the young man, by way of providing indoor amusement, offered to show her the pictures. Henrietta strolled through the long gallery in his society, while he pointed out its principal ornaments and mentioned the painters and subjects. Miss Stackpole looked at the pictures in perfect silence, committing herself to no opinion, and Ralph was gratified by the fact that she delivered herself of none of the little ready-made ejaculations of delight of which the visitors to Gardencourt were so frequently lavish. This young lady indeed, to do her justice, was but little addicted to the use of conventional terms; there was something earnest and inventive in her tone, which at times, in its strained deliberation, suggested a person of high culture speaking a foreign language. Ralph Touchett subsequently learned that she had at one time officiated as art critic to a journal of the other world; but she appeared, in spite of this fact, to carry in her pocket none of the small change of admiration. Suddenly, just after he had called her attention to a charming Constable, she turned and looked at him as if he himself had been a picture. "Do you always spend your time like this?" she demanded. "I seldom spend it so agreeably." "Well, you know what I mean--without any regular occupation." "Ah," said Ralph, "I'm the idlest man living." Miss Stackpole directed her gaze to the Constable again, and Ralph bespoke her attention for a small Lancret hanging near it, which represented a gentleman in a pink doublet and hose and a ruff, leaning against the pedestal of the statue of a nymph in a garden and playing the guitar to two ladies seated on the grass. "That's my ideal of a regular occupation," he said. Miss Stackpole turned to him again, and, though her eyes had rested upon the picture, he saw she had missed the subject. She was thinking of something much more serious. "I don't see how you can reconcile it to your conscience." "My dear lady, I have no conscience!" "Well, I advise you to cultivate one. You'll need it the next time you go to America." "I shall probably never go again." "Are you ashamed to show yourself?" Ralph meditated with a mild smile. "I suppose that if one has no conscience one has no shame." "Well, you've got plenty of assurance," Henrietta declared. "Do you consider it right to give up your country?" "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 suppose that means that you've tried and been worsted. What do they think of you over here?" "They delight in me." "That's because you truckle to them." "Ah, set it down a little to my natural charm!" Ralph sighed. "I don't know anything about your natural charm. If you've got any charm it's quite unnatural. It's wholly acquired--or at least you've tried hard to acquire it, living over here. I don't say you've succeeded. It's a charm that I don't appreciate, anyway. Make yourself useful in some way, and then we'll talk about it." "Well, now, tell me what I shall do," said Ralph. "Go right home, to begin with." "Yes, I see. And then?" "Take right hold of something." "Well, now, what sort of thing?" "Anything you please, so long as you take hold. Some new idea, some big work." "Is it very difficult to take hold?" Ralph enquired. "Not if you put your heart into it." "Ah, my heart," said Ralph. "If it depends upon my heart--!" "Haven't you got a heart?" "I had one a few days ago, but I've lost it since." "You're not serious," Miss Stackpole remarked; "that's what's the matter with you." But for all this, in a day or two, she again permitted him to fix her attention and on the later occasion assigned a different cause to her mysterious perversity. "I know what's the matter with you, Mr. Touchett," she said. "You think you're too good to get married." "I thought so till I knew you, Miss Stackpole," Ralph answered; "and then I suddenly changed my mind." "Oh pshaw!" Henrietta groaned. "Then it seemed to me," said Ralph, "that I was not good enough." "It would improve you. Besides, it's your duty." "Ah," cried the young man, "one has so many duties! Is that a duty too?" "Of course it is--did you never know that before? It's every one's duty to get married." Ralph meditated a moment; he was disappointed. There was something in Miss Stackpole he had begun to like; it seemed to him that if she was not a charming woman she was at least a very good "sort." She was wanting in distinction, but, as Isabel had said, she was brave: she went into cages, she flourished lashes, like a 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. "There may be, but that's the principal thing. I must say I think it looks very exclusive, going round all alone, as if you thought no woman was good enough for you. Do you think you're better than any one else in the world? In America it's usual for people to marry." "If it's my duty," Ralph asked, "is it not, by analogy, yours as well?" Miss Stackpole's ocular surfaces unwinkingly caught the sun. "Have you the fond hope of finding a flaw in my reasoning? Of course I've as good a right to marry as any one else." "Well then," said Ralph, "I won't say it vexes me to see you single. It delights me rather." "You're not serious yet. You never will be." "Shall you not believe me to be so on the day I tell you I desire to give up the practice of going round alone?" Miss Stackpole looked at him for a moment in a manner which seemed to announce a reply that might technically be called encouraging. But to his great surprise this expression suddenly resolved itself into an appearance of alarm and even of resentment. "No, not even then," she answered dryly. After which she walked away. "I've not conceived a passion for your friend," Ralph said that evening to Isabel, "though we talked some time this morning about it." "And you said something she didn't like," the girl replied. Ralph stared. "Has she complained of me?" "She told me she thinks there's something very low in the tone of Europeans towards women." "Does she call me a European?" "One of the worst. She told me you had said to her something that an American never would have said. But she didn't repeat it." Ralph treated himself to a luxury of laughter. "She's an extraordinary combination. Did she think I was making love to her?" "No; I believe even Americans do that. But she apparently thought you mistook the intention of something she had said, and put an unkind construction on it." "I thought she was proposing marriage to me and I accepted her. Was that unkind?" Isabel smiled. "It was unkind to me. I don't want you to marry." "My dear cousin, what's one to do among you all?" Ralph demanded. "Miss Stackpole tells me it's my bounden duty, and that it's hers, in general, to see I do mine!" "She has a great sense of duty," said Isabel gravely. "She has indeed, and it's the motive of everything she says. That's what I like her for. She thinks it's unworthy of you to keep so many things to yourself. That's what she wanted to express. If you thought she was trying to--to attract you, you were very wrong." "It's true it was an odd way, but I did think she was trying to attract me. Forgive my depravity." "You're very conceited. She had no interested views, and never supposed you would think she had." "One must be very modest then to talk with such women," Ralph said humbly. "But it's a very strange type. She's too personal--considering that she expects other people not to be. She walks in without knocking at the door." "Yes," Isabel admitted, "she doesn't sufficiently recognise the existence of knockers; and indeed I'm not sure that she doesn't think them rather a pretentious ornament. She thinks one's door should stand ajar. But I persist in liking her." "I persist in thinking her too familiar," Ralph rejoined, naturally somewhat uncomfortable under the sense of having been doubly deceived in Miss Stackpole. "Well," said Isabel, smiling, "I'm afraid it's because she's rather vulgar that I like her." "She would be flattered by your reason!" "If I should tell her I wouldn't express it in that way. I should say it's because there's something of the 'people' in her." "What do you know about the people? and what does she, for that matter?" "She knows a great deal, and I know enough to feel that she's a kind of emanation of the great democracy--of the continent, the country, the nation. I don't say that she sums it all up, that would be too much to ask of her. But she suggests it; she vividly figures it." "You like her then for patriotic reasons. I'm afraid it is on those very grounds I object to her." "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. So long as I look at the Misses Molyneux they seem to me to answer a kind of ideal. Then Henrietta presents herself, and I'm straightway convinced by her; not so much in respect to herself as in respect to what masses behind her." "Ah, you mean the back view of her," Ralph suggested. "What she says is true," his cousin answered; "you'll never be serious. I like the great country stretching away beyond the rivers and across the prairies, blooming and smiling and spreading till it stops at the green Pacific! A strong, sweet, fresh odour seems to rise from it, and Henrietta--pardon my simile--has something of that odour in her garments." Isabel blushed a little as she concluded this speech, and the blush, together with the momentary ardour she had thrown into it, was so becoming to her that Ralph stood smiling at her for a moment after she had ceased speaking. "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!"

Henrietta Stackpole writes Isabel from London to announce her arrival. Isabel arranges for her to visit Gardencourt. Ralph expresses his doubt in journalists, joking that Henrietta will probably write about their lives at Gardencourt. Isabel insists that she would not. Instead, she teasingly predicts that Ralph will fall in love with Henrietta in three days' time. Henrietta and Ralph get off to an unromantic, but good-humored start. Isabel admiringly claims that Henrietta is courageous and completely independent from men. Henrietta intends to stay for a long while at Gardencourt, writing in the mornings and socializing otherwise. Henrietta shows Isabel the article she's working on, which focuses on life at Gardencourt. Isabel insists that she change her subject, accusing Henrietta as having no sense of privacy. Isabel suggests that Henrietta write about Lord Warburton, who will be visiting soon. Henrietta is intrigued and appalled by Ralph's lack of occupation. Ralph shows Henrietta the Touchett painting collection. Ralph likes the way she keeps it real and doesn't just say the usual superficial things about the paintings. Henrietta accuses Ralph of giving up his American-ness. Ralph says that that's not possible, since your country is born into you. Henrietta accuses Ralph of being above marriage. She claims that marriage is a duty. Ralph accuses Henrietta of not fulfilling that duty also. Ralph teasingly responds that he would be willing to fulfill his duty by marrying her. Henrietta just walks away. They've got this whole sort of 1980s romantic comedy banter down pat. Isabel tells Ralph that Henrietta did not mean to flirt with him. Ralph confesses that Henrietta disturbs him for the very same reasons that Isabel loves her: she embodies the spirit of America.

summary

He took a resolve after this not to misinterpret her words even when Miss Stackpole appeared to strike the personal note most strongly. He bethought himself that persons, in her view, were simple and homogeneous organisms, and that he, for his own part, was too perverted a representative of the nature of man to have a right to deal with her in strict reciprocity. He carried out his resolve with a great deal of tact, and the young lady found in renewed contact with him no obstacle to the exercise of her genius for unshrinking enquiry, the general application of her confidence. Her situation at Gardencourt therefore, appreciated as we have seen her to be by Isabel and full of appreciation herself of that free play of intelligence which, to her sense, rendered Isabel's character a sister-spirit, and of the easy venerableness of Mr. Touchett, whose noble tone, as she said, met with her full approval--her situation at Gardencourt would have been perfectly comfortable had she not conceived an irresistible mistrust of the little lady for whom she had at first supposed herself obliged to "allow" as mistress of the house. She presently discovered, in truth, that this obligation was of the lightest and that Mrs. Touchett cared very little how Miss Stackpole behaved. Mrs. Touchett had defined her to Isabel as both an adventuress and a bore--adventuresses usually giving one more of a thrill; she had expressed some surprise at her niece's having selected such a friend, yet had immediately added that she knew Isabel's friends were her own affair and that she had never undertaken to like them all or to restrict the girl to those she liked. "If you could see none but the people I like, my dear, you'd have a very small society," Mrs. Touchett frankly admitted; "and I don't think I like any man or woman well enough to recommend them to you. When it comes to recommending it's a serious affair. I don't like Miss Stackpole--everything about her displeases me; she talks so much too loud and looks at one as if one wanted to look at her--which one doesn't. I'm sure she has lived all her life in a boarding-house, and I detest the manners and the liberties of such places. If you ask me if I prefer my own manners, which you doubtless think very bad, I'll tell you that I prefer them immensely. Miss Stackpole knows I detest boarding-house civilisation, and she detests me for detesting it, because she thinks it the highest in the world. She'd like Gardencourt a great deal better if it were a boarding-house. For me, I find it almost too much of one! We shall never get on together therefore, and there's no use trying." Mrs. Touchett was right in guessing that Henrietta disapproved of her, but she had not quite put her finger on the reason. A day or two after Miss Stackpole's arrival she had made some invidious reflexions on American hotels, which excited a vein of counter-argument on the part of the correspondent of the Interviewer, who in the exercise of her profession had acquainted herself, in the western world, with every form of caravansary. Henrietta expressed the opinion that American hotels were the best in the world, and Mrs. Touchett, fresh from a renewed struggle with them, recorded a conviction that they were the worst. Ralph, with his experimental geniality, suggested, by way of healing the breach, that the truth lay between the two extremes and that the establishments in question ought to be described as fair middling. This contribution to the discussion, however, Miss Stackpole rejected with scorn. Middling indeed! If they were not the best in the world they were the worst, but there was nothing middling about an American hotel. "We judge from different points of view, evidently," said Mrs. Touchett. "I like to be treated as an individual; you like to be treated as a 'party.'" "I don't know what you mean," Henrietta replied. "I like to be treated as an American lady." "Poor American ladies!" cried Mrs. Touchett with a laugh. "They're the slaves of slaves." "They're the companions of freemen," Henrietta retorted. "They're the companions of their servants--the Irish chambermaid and the negro waiter. They share their work." "Do you call the domestics in an American household 'slaves'?" Miss Stackpole enquired. "If that's the way you desire to treat them, no wonder you don't like America." "If you've not good servants you're miserable," Mrs. Touchett serenely said. "They're very bad in America, but I've five perfect ones in Florence." "I don't see what you want with five," Henrietta couldn't help observing. "I don't think I should like to see five persons surrounding me in that menial position." "I like them in that position better than in some others," proclaimed Mrs. Touchett with much meaning. "Should you like me better if I were your butler, dear?" her husband asked. "I don't think I should: you wouldn't at all have the tenue." "The companions of freemen--I like that, Miss Stackpole," said Ralph. "It's a beautiful description." "When I said freemen I didn't mean you, sir!" And this was the only reward that Ralph got for his compliment. Miss Stackpole was baffled; she evidently thought there was something treasonable in Mrs. Touchett's appreciation of a class which she privately judged to be a mysterious survival of feudalism. It was perhaps because her mind was oppressed with this image that she suffered some days to elapse before she took occasion to say to Isabel: "My dear friend, I wonder if you're growing faithless." "Faithless? Faithless to you, Henrietta?" "No, that would be a great pain; but it's not that." "Faithless to my country then?" "Ah, that I hope will never be. When I wrote to you from Liverpool I said I had something particular to tell you. You've never asked me what it is. Is it because you've suspected?" "Suspected what? As a rule I don't think I suspect," said Isabel. "I remember now that phrase in your letter, but I confess I had forgotten it. What have you to tell me?" Henrietta looked disappointed, and her steady gaze betrayed it. "You don't ask that right--as if you thought it important. You're changed--you're thinking of other things." "Tell me what you mean, and I'll think of that." "Will you really think of it? That's what I wish to be sure of." "I've not much control of my thoughts, but I'll do my best," said Isabel. Henrietta gazed at her, in silence, for a period which tried Isabel's patience, so that our heroine added at last: "Do you mean that you're going to be married?" "Not till I've seen Europe!" said Miss Stackpole. "What are you laughing at?" she went on. "What I mean is that Mr. Goodwood came out in the steamer with me." "Ah!" Isabel responded. "You say that right. I had a good deal of talk with him; he has come after you." "Did he tell you so?" "No, he told me nothing; that's how I knew it," said Henrietta cleverly. "He said very little about you, but I spoke of you a good deal." Isabel waited. At the mention of Mr. Goodwood's name she had turned a little pale. "I'm very sorry you did that," she observed at last. "It was a pleasure to me, and I liked the way he listened. I could have talked a long time to such a listener; he was so quiet, so intense; he drank it all in." "What did you say about me?" Isabel asked. "I said you were on the whole the finest creature I know." "I'm very sorry for that. He thinks too well of me already; he oughtn't to be encouraged." "He's dying for a little encouragement. I see his face now, and his earnest absorbed look while I talked. I never saw an ugly man look so handsome." "He's very simple-minded," said 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." "You don't say that as if you were sure." Isabel gave rather a cold smile. "I shall say it better to Mr. Goodwood himself." "He'll soon give you a chance," said Henrietta. Isabel offered no answer to this assertion, which her companion made with an air of great confidence. "He'll find you changed," the latter pursued. "You've been affected by your new surroundings." "Very likely. I'm affected by everything." "By everything but Mr. Goodwood!" Miss Stackpole exclaimed with a slightly harsh hilarity. Isabel failed even to smile back and in a moment she said: "Did he ask you to speak to me?" "Not in so many words. But his eyes asked it--and his handshake, when he bade me good-bye." "Thank you for doing so." And Isabel turned away. "Yes, you're changed; you've got new ideas over here," her friend continued. "I hope so," said Isabel; "one should get as many new ideas as possible." "Yes; but they shouldn't interfere with the old ones when the old ones have been the right ones." Isabel turned about again. "If you mean that I had any idea with regard to Mr. Goodwood--!" But she faltered before her friend's implacable glitter. "My dear child, you certainly encouraged him." Isabel made for the moment as if to deny this charge; instead of which, however, she presently answered: "It's very true. I did encourage him." And then she asked if her companion had learned from Mr. Goodwood what he intended to do. It was a concession to her curiosity, for she disliked discussing the subject and found Henrietta wanting in delicacy. "I asked him, and he said he meant to do nothing," Miss Stackpole answered. "But I don't believe that; he's not a man to do nothing. He is a man of high, bold action. Whatever happens to him he'll always do something, and whatever he does will always be right." "I quite believe that." Henrietta might be wanting in delicacy, but it touched the girl, all the same, to hear this declaration. "Ah, you do care for him!" her visitor rang out. "Whatever he does will always be right," Isabel repeated. "When a man's of that infallible mould what does it matter to him what one feels?" "It may not matter to him, but it matters to one's self." "Ah, what it matters to me--that's not what we're discussing," said Isabel with a cold smile. This time her companion was grave. "Well, I don't care; you have changed. You're not the girl you were a few short weeks ago, and Mr. Goodwood will see it. I expect him here any day." "I hope he'll hate me then," said Isabel. "I believe you hope it about as much as I believe him capable of it." To this observation our heroine made no return; she was absorbed in the alarm given her by Henrietta's intimation that Caspar Goodwood would present himself at Gardencourt. She pretended to herself, however, that she thought the event impossible, and, later, she communicated her disbelief to her friend. For the next forty-eight hours, nevertheless, she stood prepared to hear the young man's name announced. The feeling pressed upon her; it made the air sultry, as if there were to be a change of weather; and the weather, socially speaking, had been so agreeable during Isabel's stay at Gardencourt that any change would be for the worse. Her suspense indeed was dissipated the second day. She had walked into the park in company with the sociable Bunchie, and after strolling about for some time, in a manner at once listless and restless, had seated herself on a garden-bench, within sight of the house, beneath a spreading beech, where, in a white dress ornamented with black ribbons, she formed among the flickering shadows a graceful and harmonious image. She entertained herself for some moments with talking to the little terrier, as to whom the proposal of an ownership divided with her cousin had been applied as impartially as possible--as impartially as Bunchie's own somewhat fickle and inconstant sympathies would allow. But she was notified for the first time, on this occasion, of the finite character of Bunchie's intellect; hitherto she had been mainly struck with its extent. It seemed to her at last that she would do well to take a book; formerly, when heavy-hearted, she had been able, with the help of some well-chosen volume, to transfer the seat of consciousness to the organ of pure reason. Of late, it was not to be denied, literature had seemed a fading light, and even after she had reminded herself that her uncle's library was provided with a complete set of those authors which no gentleman's collection should be without, she sat motionless and empty-handed, her eyes bent on the cool green turf of the lawn. Her meditations were presently interrupted by the arrival of a servant who handed her a letter. The letter bore the London postmark and was addressed in a hand she knew--that came into her vision, already so held by him, with the vividness of the writer's voice or his face. This document proved short and may be given entire. MY DEAR MISS ARCHER--I don't know whether you will have heard of my coming to England, but even if you have not it will scarcely be a surprise to you. You will remember that when you gave me my dismissal at Albany, three months ago, I did not accept it. I protested against it. You in fact appeared to accept my protest and to admit that I had the right on my side. I had come to see you with the hope that you would let me bring you over to my conviction; my reasons for entertaining this hope had been of the best. But you disappointed it; I found you changed, and you were able to give me no reason for the change. You admitted that you were unreasonable, and it was the only concession you would make; but it was a very cheap one, because that's not your character. No, you are not, and you never will be, arbitrary or capricious. Therefore it is that I believe you will let me see you again. You told me that I'm not disagreeable to you, and I believe it; for I don't see why that should be. I shall always think of you; I shall never think of any one else. I came to England simply because you are here; I couldn't stay at home after you had gone: I hated the country because you were not in it. If I like this country at present it is only because it holds you. I have been to England before, but have never enjoyed it much. May I not come and see you for half an hour? This at present is the dearest wish of yours faithfully, CASPAR GOODWOOD. Isabel read this missive with such deep attention that she had not perceived an approaching tread on the soft grass. Looking up, however, as she mechanically folded it she saw Lord Warburton standing before her.

Mrs. Touchett does not like Henrietta, whom she finds loud and presumptuous. Interestingly, one might say the same about a certain older American lady.... Henrietta and Mrs. Touchett get in a quarrel about American hotels - Henrietta says they are the very best and Mrs. Touchett claims they are the absolute worst. Ralph tries to stand up for Henrietta, but she won't have it, since Henrietta Stackpole always fights her own battles. Mrs. Touchett says that having good servants is crucial, and American servants do not compare in quality to the five stellar Italian ones in Florence. Henrietta detests the idea of having five servants, and she has idealistic ideas about American liberty. In private, Henrietta tells Isabel about an encounter she had with Caspar Goodwood. She tells Isabel that Caspar arrived in London with her, with the aim to see Isabel. Isabel is not very excited to see Caspar, although it is unclear what her actual feelings about him are. Henrietta thinks that she's leading the poor guy on. Henrietta sees that Isabel's stay at Gardencourt has changed her. Isabel hopes so, since she wants everything to influence her. Isabel receives a letter from Caspar. The letter expresses his wish to see her, announces his impending arrival in England, and expresses the thought that he only wants to be where she is. When Isabel is finished with the letter, she sees that Lord Warburton is standing right in front of her. Hmm... love triangle, anyone?

summary

She put the letter into her pocket and offered her visitor a smile of welcome, exhibiting no trace of discomposure and half surprised at her coolness. "They told me you were out here," said Lord Warburton; "and as there was no one in the drawing-room and it's really you that I wish to see, I came out with no more ado." Isabel had got up; she felt a wish, for the moment, that he should not sit down beside her. "I was just going indoors." "Please don't do that; it's much jollier here; I've ridden over from Lockleigh; it's a lovely day." His smile was peculiarly friendly and pleasing, and his whole person seemed to emit that radiance of good-feeling and good fare which had formed the charm of the girl's first impression of him. It surrounded him like a zone of fine June weather. "We'll walk about a little then," said Isabel, who could not divest herself of the sense of an intention on the part of her visitor and who wished both to elude the intention and to satisfy her curiosity about it. It had flashed upon her vision once before, and it had given her on that occasion, as we know, a certain alarm. This alarm was composed of several elements, not all of which were disagreeable; she had indeed spent some days in analysing them and had succeeded in separating the pleasant part of the idea of Lord Warburton's "making up" to her from the painful. It may appear to some readers that the young lady was both precipitate and unduly fastidious; but the latter of these facts, if the charge be true, may serve to exonerate her from the discredit of the former. She was not eager to convince herself that a territorial magnate, as she had heard Lord Warburton called, was smitten with her charms; the fact of a declaration from such a source carrying with it really more questions than it would answer. She had received a strong impression of his being a "personage," and she had occupied herself in examining the image so conveyed. At the risk of adding to the evidence of her self-sufficiency it must be said that there had been moments when this possibility of admiration by a personage represented to her an aggression almost to the degree of an affront, quite to the degree of an inconvenience. She had never yet known a personage; there had been no personages, in this sense, in her life; there were probably none such at all in her native land. When she had thought of individual eminence she had thought of it on the basis of character and wit--of what one might like in a gentleman's mind and in his talk. She herself was a character--she couldn't help being aware of that; and hitherto her visions of a completed consciousness had concerned themselves largely with moral images--things as to which the question would be whether they pleased her sublime soul. Lord Warburton loomed up before her, largely and brightly, as a collection of attributes and powers which were not to be measured by this simple rule, but which demanded a different sort of appreciation--an appreciation that the girl, with her habit of judging quickly and freely, felt she lacked patience to bestow. He appeared to demand of her something that no one else, as it were, had presumed to do. What she felt was that a territorial, a political, a social magnate had conceived the design of drawing her into the system in which he rather invidiously lived and moved. A certain instinct, not imperious, but persuasive, told her to resist--murmured to her that virtually she had a system and an orbit of her own. It told her other things besides--things which both contradicted and confirmed each other; that a girl might do much worse than trust herself to such a man and that it would be very interesting to see something of his system from his own point of view; that on the other hand, however, there was evidently a great deal of it which she should regard only as a complication of every hour, and that even in the whole there was something stiff and stupid which would make it a burden. Furthermore there was a young man lately come from America who had no system at all, but who had a character of which it was useless for her to try to persuade herself that the impression on her mind had been light. The letter she carried in her pocket all sufficiently reminded her of the contrary. Smile not, however, I venture to repeat, at this simple young woman from Albany who debated whether she should accept an English peer before he had offered himself and who was disposed to believe that on the whole she could do better. She was a person of great good faith, and if there was a great deal of folly in her wisdom those who judge her severely may have the satisfaction of finding that, later, she became consistently wise only at the cost of an amount of folly which will constitute almost a direct appeal to charity. Lord Warburton seemed quite ready to walk, to sit or to do anything that Isabel should propose, and he gave her this assurance with his usual air of being particularly pleased to exercise a social virtue. But he was, nevertheless, not in command of his emotions, and as he strolled beside her for a moment, in silence, looking at her without letting her know it, there was something embarrassed in his glance and his misdirected laughter. Yes, assuredly--as we have touched on the point, we may return to it for a moment again--the English are the most romantic people in the world and Lord Warburton was about to give an example of it. He was about to take a step which would astonish all his friends and displease a great many of them, and which had superficially nothing to recommend it. The young lady who trod the turf beside him had come from a queer country across the sea which he knew a good deal about; her antecedents, her associations were very vague to his mind except in so far as they were generic, and in this sense they showed as distinct and unimportant. Miss Archer had neither a fortune nor the sort of beauty that justifies a man to the multitude, and he calculated that he had spent about twenty-six hours in her company. He had summed up all this--the perversity of the impulse, which had declined to avail itself of the most liberal opportunities to subside, and the judgement of mankind, as exemplified particularly in the more quickly-judging half of it: he had looked these things well in the face and then had dismissed them from his thoughts. He cared no more for them than for the rosebud in his buttonhole. It is the good fortune of a man who for the greater part of a lifetime has abstained without effort from making himself disagreeable to his friends, that when the need comes for such a course it is not discredited by irritating associations. "I hope you had a pleasant ride," said Isabel, who observed her companion's hesitancy. "It would have been pleasant if for nothing else than that it brought me here." "Are you so fond of Gardencourt?" the girl asked, more and more sure that he meant to make some appeal to her; wishing not to challenge him if he hesitated, and yet to keep all the quietness of her reason if he proceeded. It suddenly came upon her that her situation was one which a few weeks ago she would have deemed deeply romantic: the park of an old English country-house, with the foreground embellished by a "great" (as she supposed) nobleman in the act of making love to a young lady who, on careful inspection, should be found to present remarkable analogies with herself. But if she was now the heroine of the situation she succeeded scarcely the less in looking at it from the outside. "I care nothing for Gardencourt," said her companion. "I care only for you." "You've known me too short a time to have a right to say that, and I can't believe you're serious." These words of Isabel's were not perfectly sincere, for she had no doubt whatever that he himself was. They were simply a tribute to the fact, of which she was perfectly aware, that those he had just uttered would have excited surprise on the part of a vulgar world. And, moreover, if anything beside the sense she had already acquired that Lord Warburton was not a loose thinker had been needed to convince her, the tone in which he replied would quite have served the purpose. "One's right in such a matter is not measured by the time, Miss Archer; it's measured by the feeling itself. If I were to wait three months it would make no difference; I shall not be more sure of what I mean than I am to-day. Of course I've seen you very little, but my impression dates from the very first hour we met. I lost no time, I fell in love with you then. It was at first sight, as the novels say; I know now that's not a fancy-phrase, and I shall think better of novels for evermore. Those two days I spent here settled it; I don't know whether you suspected I was doing so, but I paid-mentally speaking I mean--the greatest possible attention to you. Nothing you said, nothing you did, was lost upon me. When you came to Lockleigh the other day--or rather when you went away--I was perfectly sure. Nevertheless I made up my mind to think it over and to question myself narrowly. I've done so; all these days I've done nothing else. I don't make mistakes about such things; I'm a very judicious animal. I don't go off easily, but when I'm touched, it's for life. It's for life, Miss Archer, it's for life," Lord Warburton repeated in the kindest, tenderest, pleasantest voice Isabel had ever heard, and looking at her with eyes charged with the light of a passion that had sifted itself clear of the baser parts of emotion--the heat, the violence, the unreason--and that burned as steadily as a lamp in a windless place. By tacit consent, as he talked, they had walked more and more slowly, and at last they stopped and he took her hand. "Ah, Lord Warburton, how little you know me!" Isabel said very gently. Gently too she drew her hand away. "Don't taunt me with that; that I don't know you better makes me unhappy enough already; it's all my loss. But that's what I want, and it seems to me I'm taking the best way. If you'll be my wife, then I shall know you, and when I tell you all the good I think of you you'll not be able to say it's from ignorance." "If you know me little I know you even less," said Isabel. "You mean that, unlike yourself, I may not improve on acquaintance? Ah, of course that's very possible. But think, to speak to you as I do, how determined I must be to try and give satisfaction! You do like me rather, don't you?" "I like you very much, Lord Warburton," she answered; and at this moment she liked him immensely. "I thank you for saying that; it shows you don't regard me as a stranger. I really believe I've filled all the other relations of life very creditably, and I don't see why I shouldn't fill this one--in which I offer myself to you--seeing that I care so much more about it. Ask the people who know me well; I've friends who'll speak for me." "I don't need the recommendation of your friends," said Isabel. "Ah now, that's delightful of you. You believe in me yourself." "Completely," Isabel declared. She quite glowed there, inwardly, with the pleasure of feeling she did. The light in her companion's eyes turned into a smile, and he gave a long exhalation of joy. "If you're mistaken, Miss Archer, let me lose all I possess!" She wondered whether he meant this for a reminder that he was rich, and, on the instant, felt sure that he didn't. He was thinking that, as he would have said himself; and indeed he might safely leave it to the memory of any interlocutor, especially of one to whom he was offering his hand. Isabel had prayed that she might not be agitated, and her mind was tranquil enough, even while she listened and asked herself what it was best she should say, to indulge in this incidental criticism. What she should say, had she asked herself? Her foremost wish was to say something if possible not less kind than what he had said to her. His words had carried perfect conviction with them; she felt she did, all so mysteriously, matter to him. "I thank you more than I can say for your offer," she returned at last. "It does me great honour." "Ah, don't say that!" he broke out. "I was afraid you'd say something like that. I don't see what you've to do with that sort of thing. I don't see why you should thank me--it's I who ought to thank you for listening to me: a man you know so little coming down on you with such a thumper! Of course it's a great question; I must tell you that I'd rather ask it than have it to answer myself. But the way you've listened--or at least your having listened at all--gives me some hope." "Don't hope too much," Isabel said. "Oh Miss Archer!" her companion murmured, smiling again, in his seriousness, as if such a warning might perhaps be taken but as the play of high spirits, the exuberance of elation. "Should you be greatly surprised if I were to beg you not to hope at all?" Isabel asked. "Surprised? I don't know what you mean by surprise. It wouldn't be that; it would be a feeling very much worse." Isabel walked on again; she was silent for some minutes. "I'm very sure that, highly as I already think of you, my opinion of you, if I should know you well, would only rise. But I'm by no means sure that you wouldn't be disappointed. And I say that not in the least out of conventional modesty; it's perfectly sincere." "I'm willing to risk it, Miss Archer," her companion replied. "It's a great question, as you say. It's a very difficult question." "I don't expect you of course to answer it outright. Think it over as long as may be necessary. If I can gain by waiting I'll gladly wait a long time. Only remember that in the end my dearest happiness depends on your answer." "I should be very sorry to keep you in suspense," said Isabel. "Oh, don't mind. I'd much rather have a good answer six months hence than a bad one to-day." "But it's very probable that even six months hence I shouldn't be able to give you one that you'd think good." "Why not, since you really like me?" "Ah, you must never doubt that," said Isabel. "Well then, I don't see what more you ask!" "It's not what I ask; it's what I can give. I don't think I should suit you; I really don't think I should." "You needn't worry about that. That's my affair. You needn't be a better royalist than the king." "It's not only that," said Isabel; "but I'm not sure I wish to marry any one." "Very likely you don't. I've no doubt a great many women begin that way," said his lordship, who, be it averred, did not in the least believe in the axiom he thus beguiled his anxiety by uttering. "But they're frequently persuaded." "Ah, that's because they want to be!" And Isabel lightly laughed. Her suitor's countenance fell, and he looked at her for a while in silence. "I'm afraid it's my being an Englishman that makes you hesitate," he said presently. "I know your uncle thinks you ought to marry in your own country." Isabel listened to this assertion with some interest; it had never occurred to her that Mr. Touchett was likely to discuss her matrimonial prospects with Lord Warburton. "Has he told you that?" "I remember his making the remark. He spoke perhaps of Americans generally." "He appears himself to have found it very pleasant to live in England." Isabel spoke in a manner that might have seemed a little perverse, but which expressed both her constant perception of her uncle's outward felicity and her general disposition to elude any obligation to take a restricted view. It gave her companion hope, and he immediately cried with warmth: "Ah, my dear Miss Archer, old England's a very good sort of country, you know! And it will be still better when we've furbished it up a little." "Oh, don't furbish it, Lord Warburton--, leave it alone. I like it this way." "Well then, if you like it, I'm more and more unable to see your objection to what I propose." "I'm afraid I can't make you understand." "You ought at least to try. I've a fair intelligence. Are you afraid--afraid of the climate? We can easily live elsewhere, you know. You can pick out your climate, the whole world over." These words were uttered with a breadth of candour that was like the embrace of strong arms--that was like the fragrance straight in her face, and by his clean, breathing lips, of she knew not what strange gardens, what charged airs. She would have given her little finger at that moment to feel strongly and simply the impulse to answer: "Lord Warburton, it's impossible for me to do better in this wonderful world, I think, than commit myself, very gratefully, to your loyalty." But though she was lost in admiration of her opportunity she managed to move back into the deepest shade of it, even as some wild, caught creature in a vast cage. The "splendid" security so offered her was not the greatest she could conceive. What she finally bethought herself of saying was something very different--something that deferred the need of really facing her crisis. "Don't think me unkind if I ask you to say no more about this to-day." "Certainly, certainly!" her companion cried. "I wouldn't bore you for the world." "You've given me a great deal to think about, and I promise you to do it justice." "That's all I ask of you, of course--and that you'll remember how absolutely my happiness is in your hands." Isabel listened with extreme respect to this admonition, but she said after a minute: "I must tell you that what I shall think about is some way of letting you know that what you ask is impossible--letting you know it without making you miserable." "There's no way to do that, Miss Archer. I won't say that if you refuse me you'll kill me; I shall not die of it. But I shall do worse; I shall live to no purpose." "You'll live to marry a better woman than I." "Don't say that, please," said Lord Warburton very gravely. "That's fair to neither of us." "To marry a worse one then." "If there are better women 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." His gravity made her feel equally grave, and she showed it by again requesting him to drop the subject for the present. "I'll speak to you myself--very soon. Perhaps I shall write to you." "At your convenience, yes," he replied. "Whatever time you take, it must seem to me long, and I suppose I must make the best of that." "I shall not keep you in suspense; I only want to collect my mind a little." He gave a melancholy sigh and stood looking at her a moment, with his hands behind him, giving short nervous shakes to his hunting-crop. "Do you know I'm very much afraid of it--of that remarkable mind of yours?" Our heroine's biographer can scarcely tell why, but the question made her start and brought a conscious blush to her cheek. She returned his look a moment, and then with a note in her voice that might almost have appealed to his compassion, "So am I, my lord!" she oddly exclaimed. His compassion was not stirred, however; all he possessed of the faculty of pity was needed at home. "Ah! be merciful, be merciful," he murmured. "I think you had better go," said Isabel. "I'll write to you." "Very good; but whatever you write I'll come and see you, you know." And then he stood reflecting, his eyes fixed on the observant countenance of Bunchie, who had the air of having understood all that had been said and of pretending to carry off the indiscretion by a simulated fit of curiosity as to the roots of an ancient oak. "There's one thing more," he went on. "You know, if you don't like Lockleigh--if you think it's damp or anything of that sort--you need never go within fifty miles of it. It's not damp, by the way; I've had the house thoroughly examined; it's perfectly safe and right. But if you shouldn't fancy it you 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. Good-bye." "I adore a moat," said Isabel. "Good-bye." He held out his hand, and she gave him hers a moment--a moment long enough for him to bend his handsome bared head and kiss it. Then, still agitating, in his mastered emotion, his implement of the chase, he walked rapidly away. He was evidently much upset. Isabel herself was upset, but she had not been affected as she would have imagined. What she felt was not a great responsibility, a great difficulty of choice; it appeared to her there had been no choice in the question. She couldn't marry Lord Warburton; the idea failed to support any enlightened prejudice in favour of the free exploration of life that she had hitherto entertained or was now capable of entertaining. She must write this to him, she must convince him, and that duty was comparatively simple. But what disturbed her, in the sense that it struck her with wonderment, was this very fact that it cost her so little to refuse a magnificent "chance." With whatever qualifications one would, Lord Warburton had offered her a great opportunity; the situation might have discomforts, might contain oppressive, might contain narrowing elements, might prove really but a stupefying anodyne; but she did her sex no injustice in believing that nineteen women out of twenty would have accommodated themselves to it without a pang. Why then upon her also should it not irresistibly impose itself? Who was she, what was she, that she should hold herself superior? What view of life, what design upon fate, what conception of happiness, had she that pretended to be larger than these large these fabulous occasions? If she wouldn't do such a thing as that then she must do great things, she must do something greater. Poor Isabel found ground to remind herself from time to time that she must not be too proud, and nothing could be more sincere than her prayer to be delivered from such a danger: the isolation and loneliness of pride had for her mind the horror of a desert place. If it had been pride that interfered with her accepting Lord Warburton such a betise was singularly misplaced; and she was so conscious of liking him that she ventured to assure herself it was the very softness, and the fine intelligence, of sympathy. She liked him too much to marry him, that was the truth; something assured her there was a fallacy somewhere in the glowing logic of the proposition--as he saw it--even though she mightn't put her very finest finger-point on it; and to inflict upon a man who offered so much a wife with a tendency to criticise would be a peculiarly discreditable act. She had promised him she would consider his question, and when, after he had left her, she wandered back to the bench where he had found her and lost herself in meditation, it might have seemed that she was keeping her vow. But this was not the case; she was wondering if she were not a cold, hard, priggish person, and, on her at last getting up and going rather quickly back to the house, felt, as she had said to her friend, really frightened at herself.

Isabel stands, not wanting Lord Warburton to sit with her. They begin taking a stroll. It's clear that Lord Warburton has something specific on his mind. Surprise! Lord Warburton professes his love for Isabel. He asks her to marry him. Isabel reflects on how romantic and perfect the moment would have seemed to her three months ago. Right now, though, she's just not into it. Isabel promises Lord Warburton that she will consider his proposal, and not take too long before giving him an answer. Lord Warburton confesses that he's afraid of Isabel's mind. Isabel admits that she is, too. Forlorn, Lord Warburton tells Isabel that they don't have to live at Lockleigh if she doesn't like the moat - they can go anywhere. Overcome with disappointment, he leaves. Isabel, left alone again, knows that she won't marry Lord Warburton. Reflecting upon her choice, Isabel fears for herself.

summary

Miss Stackpole would have prepared to start immediately; but Isabel, as we have seen, had been notified that Lord Warburton would come again to Gardencourt, and she believed it her duty to remain there and see him. For four or five days he had made no response to her letter; then he had written, very briefly, to say he would come to luncheon two days later. There was something in these delays and postponements that touched the girl and renewed her sense of his desire to be considerate and patient, not to appear to urge her too grossly; a consideration the more studied that she was so sure he "really liked" her. Isabel told her uncle she had written to him, mentioning also his intention of coming; and the old man, in consequence, left his room earlier than usual and made his appearance at the two o'clock repast. This was by no means an act of vigilance on his part, but the fruit of a benevolent belief that his being of the company might help to cover any conjoined straying away in case Isabel should give their noble visitor another hearing. That personage drove over from Lockleigh and brought the elder of his sisters with him, a measure presumably dictated by reflexions of the same order as Mr. Touchett's. The two visitors were introduced to Miss Stackpole, who, at luncheon, occupied a seat adjoining Lord Warburton's. Isabel, who was nervous and had no relish for the prospect of again arguing the question he had so prematurely opened, could not help admiring his good-humoured self-possession, which quite disguised the symptoms of that preoccupation with her presence it was natural she should suppose him to feel. He neither looked at her nor spoke to her, and the only sign of his emotion was that he avoided meeting her eyes. He had plenty of talk for the others, however, and he appeared to eat his luncheon with discrimination and appetite. Miss Molyneux, who had a smooth, nun-like forehead and wore a large silver cross suspended from her neck, was evidently preoccupied with Henrietta Stackpole, upon whom her eyes constantly rested in a manner suggesting a conflict between deep alienation and yearning wonder. Of the two ladies from Lockleigh she was the one Isabel had liked best; there was such a world of hereditary quiet in her. Isabel was sure moreover that her mild forehead and silver cross referred to some weird Anglican mystery--some delightful reinstitution perhaps of the quaint office of the canoness. She wondered what Miss Molyneux would think of her if she knew Miss Archer had refused her brother; and then she felt sure that Miss Molyneux would never know--that Lord Warburton never told her such things. He was fond of her and kind to her, but on the whole he told her little. Such, at least, was Isabel's theory; when, at table, she was not occupied in conversation she was usually occupied in forming theories about her neighbours. According to Isabel, if Miss Molyneux should ever learn what had passed between Miss Archer and Lord Warburton she would probably be shocked at such a girl's failure to rise; or no, rather (this was our heroine's last position) she would impute to the young American but a due consciousness of inequality. Whatever Isabel might have made of her opportunities, at all events, Henrietta Stackpole was by no means disposed to neglect those in which she now found herself immersed. "Do you know you're the first lord I've ever seen?" she said very promptly to her neighbour. "I suppose you think I'm awfully benighted." "You've escaped seeing some very ugly men," Lord Warburton answered, looking a trifle absently about the table. "Are they very ugly? They try to make us believe in America that they're all handsome and magnificent and that they wear wonderful robes and crowns." "Ah, the robes and crowns are gone out of fashion," said Lord Warburton, "like your tomahawks and revolvers." "I'm sorry for that; I think an aristocracy ought to be splendid," Henrietta declared. "If it's not that, what is it?" "Oh, you know, it isn't much, at the best," her neighbour allowed. "Won't you have a potato?" "I don't care much for these European potatoes. I shouldn't know you from an ordinary American gentleman." "Do talk to me as if I were one," said Lord Warburton. "I don't see how you manage to get on without potatoes; you must find so few things to eat over here." Henrietta was silent a little; there was a chance he was not sincere. "I've had hardly any appetite since I've been here," she went on at last; "so it doesn't much matter. I don't approve of you, you know; I feel as if I ought to tell you that." "Don't approve of me?" "Yes; I don't suppose any one ever said such a thing to you before, did they? I don't approve of lords as an institution. I think the world has got beyond them--far beyond." "Oh, so do I. I don't approve of myself in the least. Sometimes it comes over me--how I should object to myself if I were not myself, don't you know? But that's rather good, by the way--not to be vainglorious." "Why don't you give it up then?" Miss Stackpole enquired. "Give up--a--?" asked Lord Warburton, meeting her harsh inflexion with a very mellow one. "Give up being a lord." "Oh, I'm so little of one! One would really forget all about it if you wretched Americans were not constantly reminding one. However, I do think of giving it up, the little there is left of it, one of these days." "I should like to see you do it!" Henrietta exclaimed rather grimly. "I'll invite you to the ceremony; we'll have a supper and a dance." "Well," said Miss Stackpole, "I like to see all sides. I don't approve of a privileged class, but I like to hear what they have to say for themselves." "Mighty little, as you see!" "I should like to draw you out a little more," Henrietta continued. "But you're always looking away. You're afraid of meeting my eye. I see you want to escape me." "No, I'm only looking for those despised potatoes." "Please explain about that young lady--your sister--then. I don't understand about her. Is she a Lady?" "She's a capital good girl." "I don't like the way you say that--as if you wanted to change the subject. Is her position inferior to yours?" "We neither of us have any position to speak of; but she's better off than I, because she has none of the bother." "Yes, she doesn't look as if she had much bother. I wish I had as little bother as that. You do produce quiet people over here, whatever else you may do." "Ah, you see one takes life easily, on the whole," said Lord Warburton. "And then you know we're very dull. Ah, we can be dull when we try!" "I should advise you to try something else. I shouldn't know what to talk to your sister about; she looks so different. Is that silver cross a badge?" "A badge?" "A sign of rank." Lord Warburton's glance had wandered a good deal, but at this it met the gaze of his neighbour. "Oh yes," he answered in a moment; "the women go in for those things. The silver cross is worn by the eldest daughters of Viscounts." Which was his harmless revenge for having occasionally had his credulity too easily engaged in America. After luncheon he proposed to Isabel to come into the gallery and look at the pictures; and though she knew he had seen the pictures twenty times she complied without criticising this pretext. Her conscience now was very easy; ever since she sent him her letter she had felt particularly light of spirit. He walked slowly to the end of the gallery, staring at its contents and saying nothing; and then he suddenly broke out: "I hoped you wouldn't write to me that way." "It was the only way, Lord Warburton," said the girl. "Do try and believe that." "If I could believe it of course I should let you alone. But we can't believe by willing it; and I confess I don't understand. I could understand your disliking me; that I could understand well. But that you should admit you do--" "What have I admitted?" Isabel interrupted, turning slightly pale. "That you think me a good fellow; isn't that it?" She said nothing, and he went on: "You don't seem to have any reason, and that gives me a sense of injustice." "I have a reason, Lord Warburton." She said it in a tone that made his heart contract. "I should like very much to know it." "I'll tell you some day when there's more to show for it." "Excuse my saying that in the mean time I must doubt of it." "You make me very unhappy," said Isabel. "I'm not sorry for that; it may help you to know how I feel. Will you kindly answer me a question?" Isabel made no audible assent, but he apparently saw in her eyes something that gave him courage to go on. "Do you prefer some one else?" "That's a question I'd rather not answer." "Ah, you do then!" her suitor murmured with bitterness. The bitterness touched her, and she cried out: "You're mistaken! I don't." He sat down on a bench, unceremoniously, doggedly, like a man in trouble; leaning his elbows on his knees and staring at the floor. "I can't even be glad of that," he said at last, throwing himself back against the wall; "for that would be an excuse." She raised her eyebrows in surprise. "An excuse? Must I excuse myself?" He paid, however, no answer to the question. Another idea had come into his head. "Is it my political opinions? Do you think I go too far?" "I can't object to your political opinions, because I don't understand them." "You don't care what I think!" he cried, getting up. "It's all the same to you." Isabel walked to the other side of the gallery and stood there showing him her charming back, her light slim figure, the length of her white neck as she bent her head, and the density of her dark braids. She stopped in front of a small picture as if for the purpose of examining it; and there was something so young and free in her movement that her very pliancy seemed to mock at him. Her eyes, however, saw nothing; they had suddenly been suffused with tears. In a moment he followed her, and by this time she had brushed her tears away; but when she turned round her face was pale and the expression of her eyes strange. "That reason that I wouldn't tell you--I'll tell it you after all. It's that I can't escape my fate." "Your fate?" "I should try to escape it if I were to marry you." "I don't understand. Why should not that be your fate as well as anything else?" "Because it's not," said Isabel femininely. "I know it's not. It's not my fate to give up--I know it can't be." Poor Lord Warburton stared, an interrogative point in either eye. "Do you call marrying me giving up?" "Not in the usual sense. It's getting--getting--getting a great deal. But it's giving up other chances." "Other chances for what?" "I don't mean chances to marry," said Isabel, her colour quickly coming back to her. And then she stopped, looking down with a deep frown, as if it were hopeless to attempt to make her meaning clear. "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 mustn't--I can't!" cried the girl. "Well, if you're bent on being miserable I don't see why you should make me so. Whatever charms a life of misery may have for you, it has none for me." "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." "By separating yourself from what?" "From life. From the usual chances and dangers, from what most people know and suffer." Lord Warburton broke into a smile that almost denoted hope. "Why, my dear Miss Archer," he began to explain with the most considerate eagerness, "I don't offer you any exoneration from life or from any chances or dangers whatever. I wish I could; depend upon it I would! For what do you take me, pray? Heaven help me, I'm not the Emperor of China! All I offer you is the chance of taking the common lot in a comfortable sort of way. The common lot? Why, I'm devoted to the common lot! Strike an alliance with me, and I promise you that you shall have plenty of it. You shall separate from nothing whatever--not even from your friend Miss Stackpole." "She'd never approve of it," said Isabel, trying to smile and take advantage of this side-issue; despising herself too, not a little, for doing so. "Are we speaking of Miss Stackpole?" his lordship asked impatiently. "I never saw a person judge things on such theoretic grounds." "Now I suppose you're speaking of me," said Isabel with humility; and she turned away again, for she saw Miss Molyneux enter the gallery, accompanied by Henrietta and by Ralph. Lord Warburton's sister addressed him with a certain timidity and reminded him she ought to return home in time for tea, as she was expecting company to partake of it. He made no answer--apparently not having heard her; he was preoccupied, and with good reason. Miss Molyneux--as if he had been Royalty--stood like a lady-in-waiting. "Well, I never, Miss Molyneux!" said Henrietta Stackpole. "If I wanted to go he'd have to go. If I wanted my brother to do a thing he'd have to do it." "Oh, Warburton does everything one wants," Miss Molyneux answered with a quick, shy laugh. "How very many pictures you have!" she went on, turning to Ralph. "They look a good many, because they're all put together," said Ralph. "But it's really a bad way." "Oh, I think it's so nice. I wish we had a gallery at Lockleigh. I'm so very fond of pictures," Miss Molyneux went on, persistently, to Ralph, as if she were afraid Miss Stackpole would address her again. Henrietta appeared at once to fascinate and to frighten her. "Ah yes, pictures are very convenient," said Ralph, who appeared to know better what style of reflexion was acceptable to her. "They're so very pleasant when it rains," the young lady continued. "It has rained of late so very often." "I'm sorry you're going away, Lord Warburton," said Henrietta. "I wanted to get a great deal more out of you." "I'm not going away," Lord Warburton answered. "Your sister says you must. In America the gentlemen obey the ladies." "I'm afraid we have some people to tea," said Miss Molyneux, looking at her brother. "Very good, my dear. We'll go." "I hoped you would resist!" Henrietta exclaimed. "I wanted to see what Miss Molyneux would do." "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." "You must come to Lockleigh again," said Miss Molyneux, very sweetly, to Isabel, ignoring this remark of Isabel's friend. Isabel looked into her quiet eyes a moment, and for that moment seemed to see in their grey depths the reflexion of everything she had rejected in rejecting Lord Warburton--the peace, the kindness, the honour, the possessions, a deep security and a great exclusion. She kissed Miss Molyneux and then she said: "I'm afraid I can never come again." "Never again?" "I'm afraid I'm going away." "Oh, I'm so very sorry," said Miss Molyneux. "I think that's so very wrong of you." Lord Warburton watched this little passage; then he turned away and stared at a picture. Ralph, leaning against the rail before the picture with his hands in his pockets, had for the moment been watching him. "I should like to see you at home," said Henrietta, whom Lord Warburton found beside him. "I should like an hour's talk with you; there are a great many questions I wish to ask you." "I shall be delighted to see you," the proprietor of Lockleigh answered; "but I'm certain not to be able to answer many of your questions. When will you come?" "Whenever Miss Archer will take me. We're thinking of going to London, but we'll go and see you first. I'm determined to get some satisfaction out of you." "If it depends upon Miss Archer I'm afraid you won't get much. She won't come to Lockleigh; she doesn't like the place." "She told me it was lovely!" said Henrietta. Lord Warburton hesitated. "She won't come, all the same. You had better come alone," he added. Henrietta straightened herself, and her large eyes expanded. "Would you make that remark to an English lady?" she enquired with soft asperity. Lord Warburton stared. "Yes, if I liked her enough." "You'd be careful not to like her enough. If Miss Archer won't visit your place again it's because she doesn't want to take me. I know what she thinks of me, and I suppose you think the same--that I oughtn't to bring in individuals." Lord Warburton was at a loss; he had not been made acquainted with Miss Stackpole's professional character and failed to catch her allusion. "Miss Archer has been warning you!" she therefore went on. "Warning me?" "Isn't that why she came off alone with you here--to put you on your guard?" "Oh dear, no," said Lord Warburton brazenly; "our talk had no such solemn character as that." "Well, you've been on your guard--intensely. I suppose it's natural to you; that's just what I wanted to observe. And so, too, Miss Molyneux--she wouldn't commit herself. You have been warned, anyway," Henrietta continued, addressing this young lady; "but for you it wasn't necessary." "I hope not," said Miss Molyneux vaguely. "Miss Stackpole takes notes," Ralph soothingly explained. "She's a great satirist; she sees through us all and she works us up." "Well, I must say I never have had such a collection of bad material!" Henrietta declared, looking from Isabel to Lord Warburton and from this nobleman to his sister and to Ralph. "There's something the matter with you all; you're as dismal as if you had got a bad cable." "You do see through us, Miss Stackpole," said Ralph in a low tone, giving her a little intelligent nod as he led the party out of the gallery. "There's something the matter with us all." Isabel came behind these two; Miss Molyneux, who decidedly liked her immensely, had taken her arm, to walk beside her over the polished floor. Lord Warburton strolled on the other side with his hands behind him and his eyes lowered. For some moments he said nothing; and then, "Is it true you're going to London?" he asked. "I believe it has been arranged." "And when shall you come back?" "In a few days; but probably for a very short time. I'm going to Paris with my aunt." "When, then, shall I see you again?" "Not for a good while," said Isabel. "But some day or other, I hope." "Do you really hope it?" "Very much." He went a few steps in silence; then he stopped and put out his hand. "Good-bye." "Good-bye," said Isabel. Miss Molyneux kissed her again, and she let the two depart. After it, without rejoining Henrietta and Ralph, she retreated to her own room; in which apartment, before dinner, she was found by Mrs. Touchett, who had stopped on her way to the salon. "I may as well tell you," said that lady, "that your uncle has informed me of your relations with Lord Warburton." Isabel considered. "Relations? They're hardly relations. That's the strange part of it: he has seen me but three or four times." "Why did you tell your uncle rather than me?" Mrs. Touchett dispassionately asked. Again the girl hesitated. "Because he knows Lord Warburton better." "Yes, but I know you better." "I'm not sure of that," said Isabel, smiling. "Neither am I, after all; especially when you give me that rather conceited look. One would think you were awfully pleased with yourself and had carried off a prize! I suppose that when you refuse an offer like Lord Warburton's it's because you expect to do something better." "Ah, my uncle didn't say that!" cried Isabel, smiling still.

The young party delays the journey to London in order to be at Gardencourt when Lord Warburton visits. Lord Warburton and the older Miss Molyneux come to Gardencourt for lunch. Miss Stackpole meets them for the first time. Henrietta Stackpole asks Lord Warburton a bunch of questions in her bustling way. Lord Warburton indulges her and replies politely, with his usual sense of humor. Lord Warburton invites Isabel to look at the paintings with him, and displays his disappointment upon reading her response to his proposal. He asks her what it is that makes her reject him. Isabel responds in a somewhat odd fashion: She says that she would be trying to avoid her fate by attempting happiness with Lord Warburton. Miss Molyneux reminds Lord Warburton that she is expecting friends for tea at Lockleigh, so they'd better get going. Her brother doesn't immediately respond. Henrietta Stackpole is appalled by Miss Molyneux's passivity. Miss Molyneux, who's puzzled and a little scared by the newspaper woman, ignores Henrietta, but invites Isabel back to Lockleigh. Isabel says that she'll probably never go to Lockleigh again. Henrietta, who doesn't know about the proposal or the rejection of the proposal, invites herself over to Lockleigh, presuming that she, Isabel, and Ralph could make a visit before going to London. Lord Warburton suggests that if Henrietta were to go, it would be without Isabel. Henrietta figures that Isabel has warned Lord Warburton of her journalistic ulterior motive. Lord Warburton asks Isabel how long they'll be gone. Isabel says they'll be back within a couple of days, but then she'll be going to Paris with Mrs. Touchett. Mrs. Touchett tells Isabel that Mr. Touchett told her about the proposal. Mrs. Touchett wonders why Isabel didn't tell her first, since she thinks that she knows the most about Isabel. Isabel isn't sure about that. Mrs. Touchett assumes that Isabel refused Lord Warburton because she has better things to do than get married. Isabel smiles, knowing that Mrs. Touchett and Mr. Touchett both see her refusal differently.

summary

She had had no hidden motive in wishing him not to take her home; it simply struck her that for some days past she had consumed an inordinate quantity of his time, and the independent spirit of the American girl whom extravagance of aid places in an attitude that she ends by finding "affected" had made her decide that for these few hours she must suffice to herself. She had moreover a great fondness for intervals of solitude, which since her arrival in England had been but meagrely met. It was a luxury she could always command at home and she had wittingly missed it. That evening, however, an incident occurred which--had there been a critic to note it--would have taken all colour from the theory that the wish to be quite by herself had caused her to dispense with her cousin's attendance. Seated toward nine o'clock in the dim illumination of Pratt's Hotel and trying with the aid of two tall candles to lose herself in a volume she had brought from Gardencourt, she succeeded only to the extent of reading other words than those printed on the page--words that Ralph had spoken to her that afternoon. Suddenly the well-muffed knuckle of the waiter was applied to the door, which presently gave way to his exhibition, even as a glorious trophy, of the card of a visitor. When this memento had offered to her fixed sight the name of Mr. Caspar Goodwood she let the man stand before her without signifying her wishes. "Shall I show the gentleman up, ma'am?" he asked with a slightly encouraging inflexion. Isabel hesitated still and while she hesitated glanced at the mirror. "He may come in," she said at last; and waited for him not so much smoothing her hair as girding her spirit. Caspar Goodwood was accordingly the next moment shaking hands with her, but saying nothing till the servant had left the room. "Why didn't you answer my letter?" he then asked in a quick, full, slightly peremptory tone--the tone of a man whose questions were habitually pointed and who was capable of much insistence. She answered by a ready question, "How did you know I was here?" "Miss Stackpole let me know," said Caspar Goodwood. "She told me you would probably be at home alone this evening and would be willing to see me." "Where did she see you--to tell you that?" "She didn't see me; she wrote to me." Isabel was silent; neither had sat down; they stood there with an air of defiance, or at least of contention. "Henrietta never told me she was writing to you," she said at last. "This is not kind of her." "Is it so disagreeable to you to see me?" asked the young man. "I didn't expect it. I don't like such surprises." "But you knew I was in town; it was natural we should meet." "Do you call this meeting? I hoped I shouldn't see you. In so big a place as London it seemed very possible." "It was apparently repugnant to you even to write to me," her visitor went on. Isabel made no reply; the sense of Henrietta Stackpole's treachery, as she momentarily qualified it, was strong within her. "Henrietta's certainly not a model of all the delicacies!" she exclaimed with bitterness. "It was a great liberty to take." "I suppose I'm not a model either--of those virtues or of any others. The fault's mine as much as hers." As Isabel looked at him it seemed to her that his jaw had never been more square. This might have displeased her, but she took a different turn. "No, it's not your fault so much as hers. What you've done was inevitable, I suppose, for you." "It was indeed!" cried Caspar Goodwood with a voluntary laugh. "And now that I've come, at any rate, mayn't I stay?" "You may sit down, certainly." She went back to her chair again, while her visitor took the first place that offered, in the manner of a man accustomed to pay little thought to that sort of furtherance. "I've been hoping every day for an answer to my letter. You might have written me a few lines." "It wasn't the trouble of writing that prevented me; I could as easily have written you four pages as one. But my silence was an intention," Isabel said. "I thought it the best thing." He sat with his eyes fixed on hers while she spoke; then he lowered them and attached them to a spot in the carpet as if he were making a strong effort to say nothing but what he ought. He was a strong man in the wrong, and he was acute enough to see that an uncompromising exhibition of his strength would only throw the falsity of his position into relief. Isabel was not incapable of tasting any advantage of position over a person of this quality, and though little desirous to flaunt it in his face she could enjoy being able to say "You know you oughtn't to have written to me yourself!" and to say it with an air of triumph. Caspar Goodwood raised his eyes to her own again; they seemed to shine through the vizard of a helmet. He had a strong sense of justice and was ready any day in the year--over and above this--to argue the question of his rights. "You said you hoped never to hear from me again; I know that. But I never accepted any such rule as my own. I warned you that you should hear very soon." "I didn't say I hoped NEVER to hear from you," said Isabel. "Not for five years then; for ten years; twenty years. It's the same thing." "Do you find it so? It seems to me there's a great difference. I can imagine that at the end of ten years we might have a very pleasant correspondence. I shall have matured my epistolary style." She looked away while she spoke these words, knowing them of so much less earnest a cast than the countenance of her listener. Her eyes, however, at last came back to him, just as he said very irrelevantly; "Are you enjoying your visit to your uncle?" "Very much indeed." She dropped, but then she broke out. "What good do you expect to get by insisting?" "The good of not losing you." "You've no right to talk of losing what's not yours. And even from your own point of view," Isabel added, "you ought to know when to let one alone." "I disgust you very much," said Caspar Goodwood gloomily; not as if to provoke her to compassion for a man conscious of this blighting fact, but as if to set it well before himself, so that he might endeavour to act with his eyes on it. "Yes, you don't at all delight me, you don't fit in, not in any way, just now, and the worst is that your putting it to the proof in this manner is quite unnecessary." It wasn't certainly as if his nature had been soft, so that pin-pricks would draw blood from it; and from the first of her acquaintance with him, and of her having to defend herself against a certain air that he had of knowing better what was good for her than she knew herself, she had recognised the fact that perfect frankness was her best weapon. To attempt to spare his sensibility or to escape from him edgewise, as one might do from a man who had barred the way less sturdily--this, in dealing with Caspar Goodwood, who would grasp at everything of every sort that one might give him, was wasted agility. It was not that he had not susceptibilities, but his passive surface, as well as his active, was large and hard, and he might always be trusted to dress his wounds, so far as they required it, himself. She came back, even for her measure of possible pangs and aches in him, to her old sense that he was naturally plated and steeled, armed essentially for aggression. "I can't reconcile myself to that," he simply said. There was a dangerous liberality about it; for she felt how open it was to him to make the point that he had not always disgusted her. "I can't reconcile myself to it either, and it's not the state of things that ought to exist between us. If you'd only try to banish me from your mind for a few months we should be on good terms again." "I see. If I should cease to think of you at all for a prescribed time, I should find I could keep it up indefinitely." "Indefinitely is more than I ask. It's more even than I should like." "You know that what you ask is impossible," said the young man, taking his adjective for granted in a manner she found irritating. "Aren't you capable of making a calculated effort?" she demanded. "You're strong for everything else; why shouldn't you be strong for that?" "An effort calculated for what?" And then as she hung fire, "I'm capable of nothing with regard to you," he went on, "but just of being infernally in love with you. If one's strong one loves only the more strongly." "There's a good deal in that;" and indeed our young lady felt the force of it--felt it thrown off, into the vast of truth and poetry, as practically a bait to her imagination. But she promptly came round. "Think of me or not, as you find most possible; only leave me alone." "Until when?" "Well, for a year or two." "Which do you mean? Between one year and two there's all the difference in the world." "Call it two then," said Isabel with a studied effect of eagerness. "And what shall I gain by that?" her friend asked with no sign of wincing. "You'll have obliged me greatly." "And what will be my reward?" "Do you need a reward for an act of generosity?" "Yes, when it involves a great sacrifice." "There's no generosity without some sacrifice. Men don't understand such things. If you make the sacrifice you'll have all my admiration." "I don't care a cent for your admiration--not one straw, with nothing to show for it. When will you marry me? That's the only question." "Never--if you go on making me feel only as I feel at present." "What do I gain then by not trying to make you feel otherwise?" "You'll gain quite as much as by worrying me to death!" Caspar Goodwood bent his eyes again and gazed a while into the crown of his hat. A deep flush overspread his face; she could see her sharpness had at last penetrated. This immediately had a value--classic, romantic, redeeming, what did she know? for her; "the strong man in pain" was one of the categories of the human appeal, little charm as he might exert in the given case. "Why do you make me say such things to you?" she cried in a trembling voice. "I only want to be gentle--to be thoroughly kind. It's not delightful to me to feel people care for me and yet to have to try and reason them out of it. I think others also ought to be considerate; we have each to judge for ourselves. I know you're considerate, as much as you can be; you've good reasons for what you do. But I really don't want to marry, or to talk about it at all now. I shall probably never do it--no, never. I've a perfect right to feel that way, and it's no kindness to a woman to press her so hard, to urge her against her will. If I give you pain I can only say I'm very sorry. It's not my fault; I can't marry you simply to please you. I won't say that I shall always remain your friend, because when women say that, in these situations, it passes, I believe, for a sort of mockery. But try me some day." Caspar Goodwood, during this speech, had kept his eyes fixed upon the name of his hatter, and it was not until some time after she had ceased speaking that he raised them. When he did so the sight of a rosy, lovely eagerness in Isabel's face threw some confusion into his attempt to analyse her words. "I'll go home--I'll go to-morrow--I'll leave you alone," he brought out at last. "Only," he heavily said, "I hate to lose sight of you!" "Never fear. I shall do no harm." "You'll marry some one else, as sure as I sit here," Caspar Goodwood declared. "Do you think that a generous charge?" "Why not? Plenty of men will try to make you." "I told you just now that I don't wish to marry and that I almost certainly never shall." "I know you did, and I like your 'almost certainly'! I put no faith in what you say." "Thank you very much. Do you accuse me of lying to shake you off? You say very delicate things." "Why should I not say that? You've given me no pledge of anything at all." "No, that's all that would be wanting!" "You may perhaps even believe you're safe--from wishing to be. But you're not," the young man went on as if preparing himself for the worst. "Very well then. We'll put it that I'm not safe. Have it as you please." "I don't know, however," said Caspar Goodwood, "that my keeping you in sight would prevent it." "Don't you indeed? I'm after all very much afraid of you. Do you think I'm so very easily pleased?" she asked suddenly, changing her tone. "No--I don't; I shall try to console myself with that. But there are a certain number of very dazzling men in the world, no doubt; and if there were only one it would be enough. The most dazzling of all will make straight for you. You'll be sure to take no one who isn't dazzling." "If you mean by dazzling brilliantly clever," Isabel said--"and I can't imagine what else you mean--I don't need the aid of a clever man to teach me how to live. I can find it out for myself." "Find out how to live alone? I wish that, when you have, you'd teach me!" She looked at him a moment; then with a quick smile, "Oh, you ought to marry!" she said. He might be pardoned if for an instant this exclamation seemed to him to sound the infernal note, and it is not on record that her motive for discharging such a shaft had been of the clearest. He oughtn't to stride about lean and hungry, however--she certainly felt THAT for him. "God forgive you!" he murmured between his teeth as he turned away. Her accent had put her slightly in the wrong, and after a moment she felt the need to right herself. The easiest way to do it was to place him where she had been. "You do me great injustice--you say what you don't know!" she broke out. "I shouldn't be an easy victim--I've proved it." "Oh, to me, perfectly." "I've proved it to others as well." And she paused a moment. "I refused a proposal of marriage last week; what they call--no doubt--a dazzling one." "I'm very glad to hear it," said the young man gravely. "It was a proposal many girls would have accepted; it had everything to recommend it." Isabel had not proposed to herself to tell this story, but, now she had begun, the satisfaction of speaking it out and doing herself justice took possession of her. "I was offered a great position and a great fortune--by a person whom I like extremely." Caspar watched her with intense interest. "Is he an Englishman?" "He's an English nobleman," said Isabel. Her visitor received this announcement at first in silence, but at last said: "I'm glad he's disappointed." "Well then, as you have companions in misfortune, make the best of it." "I don't call him a companion," said Casper grimly. "Why not--since I declined his offer absolutely?" "That doesn't make him my companion. Besides, he's an Englishman." "And pray isn't an Englishman a human being?" Isabel asked. "Oh, those people? They're not of my humanity, and I don't care what becomes of them." "You're very angry," said the girl. "We've discussed this matter quite enough." "Oh yes, I'm very angry. I plead guilty to that!" She turned away from him, walked to the open window and stood a moment looking into the dusky void of the street, where a turbid gaslight alone represented social animation. For some time neither of these young persons spoke; Caspar lingered near the chimney-piece with eyes gloomily attached. She had virtually requested him to go--he knew that; but at the risk of making himself odious he kept his ground. She was far too dear to him to be easily renounced, and he had crossed the sea all to wring from her some scrap of a vow. Presently she left the window and stood again before him. "You do me very little justice--after my telling you what I told you just now. I'm sorry I told you--since it matters so little to you." "Ah," cried the young man, "if you were thinking of ME when you did it!" And then he paused with the fear that she might contradict so happy a thought. "I was thinking of you a little," said Isabel. "A little? I don't understand. If the knowledge of what I feel for you had any weight with you at all, calling it a 'little' is a poor account of it." Isabel shook her head as if to carry off a blunder. "I've refused a most kind, noble gentleman. Make the most of that." "I thank you then," said Caspar Goodwood gravely. "I thank you immensely." "And now you had better go home." "May I not see you again?" he asked. "I think it's better not. You'll be sure to talk of this, and you see it leads to nothing." "I promise you not to say a word that will annoy you." Isabel reflected and then answered: "I return in a day or two to my uncle's, and I can't propose to you to come there. It would be too inconsistent." Caspar Goodwood, on his side, considered. "You must do me justice too. I received an invitation to your uncle's more than a week ago, and I declined it." She betrayed surprise. "From whom was your invitation?" "From Mr. Ralph Touchett, whom I suppose to be your cousin. I declined it because I had not your authorisation to accept it. The suggestion that Mr. Touchett should invite me appeared to have come from Miss Stackpole." "It certainly never did from me. Henrietta really goes very far," Isabel added. "Don't be too hard on her--that touches ME." "No; if you declined you did quite right, and I thank you for it." And she gave a little shudder of dismay at the thought that Lord Warburton and Mr. Goodwood might have met at Gardencourt: it would have been so awkward for Lord Warburton. "When you leave your uncle where do you go?" her companion asked. "I go abroad with my aunt--to Florence and other places." The serenity of this announcement struck a chill to the young man's heart; he seemed to see her whirled away into circles from which he was inexorably excluded. Nevertheless he went on quickly with his questions. "And when shall you come back to America?" "Perhaps not for a long time. I'm very happy here." "Do you mean to give up your country?" "Don't be an infant!" "Well, you'll be out of my sight indeed!" said Caspar Goodwood. "I don't know," she answered rather grandly. "The world--with all these places so arranged and so touching each other--comes to strike one as rather small." "It's a sight too big for ME!" Caspar exclaimed with a simplicity our young lady might have found touching if her face had not been set against concessions. This attitude was part of a system, a theory, that she had lately embraced, and to be thorough she said after a moment: "Don't think me unkind if I say it's just THAT--being out of your sight--that I like. If you were in the same place I should feel you were watching me, and I don't like that--I like my liberty too much. If there's a thing in the world I'm fond of," she went on with a slight recurrence of grandeur, "it's my personal independence." But whatever there might be of the too superior in this speech moved Caspar Goodwood's admiration; there was nothing he winced at in the large air of it. He had never supposed she hadn't wings and the need of beautiful free movements--he wasn't, with his own long arms and strides, afraid of any force in her. Isabel's words, if they had been meant to shock him, failed of the mark and only made him smile with the sense that here was common ground. "Who would wish less to curtail your liberty than I? What can give me greater pleasure than to see you perfectly independent--doing whatever you like? It's to make you independent that I want to marry you." "That's a beautiful sophism," said the girl with a smile more beautiful still. "An unmarried woman--a girl of your age--isn't independent. There are all sorts of things she can't do. She's hampered at every step." "That's as she looks at the question," Isabel answered with much spirit. "I'm not in my first youth--I can do what I choose--I belong quite to the independent class. I've neither father nor mother; I'm poor and of a serious disposition; 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. You're so kind as to speak of being afraid of my marrying. If you should hear a rumour that I'm on the point of doing so--girls are liable to have such things said about them--remember what I have told you about my love of liberty and venture to doubt it." There was something passionately positive in the tone in which she gave him this advice, and he saw a shining candour in her eyes that helped him to believe her. On the whole he felt reassured, and you might have perceived it by the manner in which he said, quite eagerly: "You want simply to travel for two years? I'm quite willing to wait two years, and you may do what you like in the interval. If that's all you want, pray say so. I don't want you to be conventional; do I strike you as conventional myself? Do you want to improve your mind? Your mind's quite good enough for me; but if it interests you to wander about a while and see different countries I shall be delighted to help you in any way in my power." "You're very generous; that's nothing new to me. The best way to help me will be to put as many hundred miles of sea between us as possible." "One would think you were going to commit some atrocity!" said Caspar Goodwood. "Perhaps I am. I wish to be free even to do that if the fancy takes me." "Well then," he said slowly, "I'll go home." And he put out his hand, trying to look contented and confident. Isabel's confidence in him, however, was greater than any he could feel in her. Not that he thought her capable of committing an atrocity; but, turn it over as he would, there was something ominous in the way she reserved her option. As she took his hand she felt a great respect for him; she knew how much he cared for her and she thought him magnanimous. They stood so for a moment, looking at each other, united by a hand-clasp which was not merely passive on her side. "That's right," she said very kindly, almost tenderly. "You'll lose nothing by being a reasonable man." "But I'll come back, wherever you are, two years hence," he returned with characteristic grimness. We have seen that our young lady was inconsequent, and at this she suddenly changed her note. "Ah, remember, I promise nothing--absolutely nothing!" Then more softly, as if to help him to leave her: "And remember too that I shall not be an easy victim!" "You'll get very sick of your independence." "Perhaps I shall; it's even very probable. When that day comes I shall be very glad to see you." She had laid her hand on the knob of the door that led into her room, and she waited a moment to see whether her visitor would not take his departure. But he appeared unable to move; there was still an immense unwillingness in his attitude and a sore remonstrance in his eyes. "I must leave you now," said Isabel; and she opened the door and passed into the other room. This apartment was dark, but the darkness was tempered by a vague radiance sent up through the window from the court of the hotel, and Isabel could make out the masses of the furniture, the dim shining of the mirror and the looming of the big four-posted bed. She stood still a moment, listening, and at last she heard Caspar Goodwood walk out of the sitting-room and close the door behind him. She stood still a little longer, and then, by an irresistible impulse, dropped on her knees before her bed and hid her face in her arms.

Isabel is in desperate need of some alone time - a lot has happened in her world recently. Unexpectedly, Caspar Goodwood arrives. Henrietta apparently wrote to him and let him know that Isabel would be alone that evening. Kind of sneaky, sure; but, hey - that's Henrietta. Caspar Goodwood asks Isabel why she never wrote him back. She says that her silence was intentional. Oh, snap. Isabel demands that Caspar stay away from her -- for at least two years. Caspar worries that she will marry someone else. Isabel insists that she doesn't want to get married at all. Isabel tells Caspar that she has turned down an English nobleman, and admits that she sort of thought of Caspar when she did it, which gives Caspar some consolation. Caspar admits that he was invited to Gardencourt by way of Henrietta, which adds yet another tick on the old "Why, Henrietta, Why?" list. Caspar said that he declined because it didn't seem like the invitation was coming from Isabel. Isabel thanks him for this propriety. Isabel shudders at the thought of Caspar and Lord Warburton possibly meeting - she would have felt bad for Lord Warburton. Isabel says that she plans to stay in Europe for a while. She says that the world is small, but Caspar claims that it is too big. He feels the distance between the two of them. Isabel declares, once again, that her personal freedom is very important to her. Caspar insists that he wants to marry her in order to liberate her and, supposedly, give her more opportunities. Isabel insists that Caspar keeps his distance from her. Caspar jokes that she's going to do something criminal. Isabel doesn't deny it; she says she would like the freedom to do anything, even something atrocious. Caspar promises to reenter her life after two years. Caspar does not leave until Isabel leaves the room. Isabel retreats and collapses at the foot of her bed.

summary

She was not praying; she was trembling--trembling all over. Vibration was easy to her, was in fact too constant with her, and she found herself now humming like a smitten harp. She only asked, however, to put on the cover, to case herself again in brown holland, but she wished to resist her excitement, and the attitude of devotion, which she kept for some time, seemed to help her to be still. She intensely rejoiced that Caspar Goodwood was gone; there was something in having thus got rid of him that was like the payment, for a stamped receipt, of some debt too long on her mind. As she felt the glad relief she bowed her head a little lower; the sense was there, throbbing in her heart; it was part of her emotion, but it was a thing to be ashamed of--it was profane and out of place. It was not for some ten minutes that she rose from her knees, and even when she came back to the sitting-room her tremor had not quite subsided. It had had, verily, two causes: part of it was to be accounted for by her long discussion with Mr. Goodwood, but it might be feared that the rest was simply the enjoyment she found in the exercise of her power. She sat down in the same chair again and took up her book, but without going through the form of opening the volume. She leaned back, with that low, soft, aspiring murmur with which she often uttered her response to accidents of which the brighter side was not superficially obvious, and yielded to the satisfaction of having refused two ardent suitors in a fortnight. That love of liberty of which she had given Caspar Goodwood so bold a sketch was as yet almost exclusively theoretic; she had not been able to indulge it on a large scale. But it appeared to her she had done something; she had tasted of the delight, if not of battle, at least of victory; she had done what was truest to her plan. In the glow of this consciousness the image of Mr. Goodwood taking his sad walk homeward through the dingy town presented itself with a certain reproachful force; so that, as at the same moment the door of the room was opened, she rose with an apprehension that he had come back. But it was only Henrietta Stackpole returning from her dinner. Miss Stackpole immediately saw that our young lady had been "through" something, and indeed the discovery demanded no great penetration. She went straight up to her friend, who received her without a greeting. Isabel's elation in having sent Caspar Goodwood back to America presupposed her being in a manner glad he had come to see her; but at the same time she perfectly remembered Henrietta had had no right to set a trap for her. "Has he been here, dear?" the latter yearningly asked. Isabel turned away and for some moments answered nothing. "You acted very wrongly," she declared at last. "I acted for the best. I only hope you acted as well." "You're not the judge. I can't trust you," said Isabel. This declaration was unflattering, but Henrietta was much too unselfish to heed the charge it conveyed; she cared only for what it intimated with regard to her friend. "Isabel Archer," she observed with equal abruptness and solemnity, "if you marry one of these people I'll never speak to you again!" "Before making so terrible a threat you had better wait till I'm asked," Isabel replied. Never having said a word to Miss Stackpole about Lord Warburton's overtures, she had now no impulse whatever to justify herself to Henrietta by telling her that she had refused that nobleman. "Oh, you'll be asked quick enough, once you get off on the Continent. Annie Climber was asked three times in Italy--poor plain little Annie." "Well, if Annie Climber wasn't captured why should I be?" "I don't believe Annie was pressed; but you'll be." "That's a flattering conviction," said Isabel without alarm. "I don't flatter you, Isabel, I tell you the truth!" cried her friend. "I hope you don't mean to tell me that you didn't give Mr. Goodwood some hope." "I don't see why I should tell you anything; as I said to you just now, I can't trust you. But since you're so much interested in Mr. Goodwood I won't conceal from you that he returns immediately to America." "You don't mean to say you've sent him off?" Henrietta almost shrieked. "I asked him to leave me alone; and I ask you the same, Henrietta." Miss Stackpole glittered for an instant with dismay, and then passed to the mirror over the chimney-piece and took off her bonnet. "I hope you've enjoyed your dinner," Isabel went on. But her companion was not to be diverted by frivolous propositions. "Do you know where you're going, Isabel Archer?" "Just now I'm going to bed," said Isabel with persistent frivolity. "Do you know where you're drifting?" Henrietta pursued, holding out her bonnet delicately. "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." "Mr. Goodwood certainly didn't teach you to say such things as that--like the heroine of an immoral novel," said Miss Stackpole. "You're drifting to some great mistake." Isabel was irritated by her friend's interference, yet she still tried to think what truth this declaration could represent. She could think of nothing that diverted her from saying: "You must be very fond of me, Henrietta, to be willing to be so aggressive." "I love you intensely, Isabel," said Miss Stackpole with feeling. "Well, if you love me intensely let me as intensely alone. I asked that of Mr. Goodwood, and I must also ask it of you." "Take care you're not let alone too much." "That's what Mr. Goodwood said to me. I told him I must take the risks." "You're a creature of risks--you make me shudder!" cried Henrietta. "When does Mr. Goodwood return to America?" "I don't know--he didn't tell me." "Perhaps you didn't enquire," said Henrietta with the note of righteous irony. "I gave him too little satisfaction to have the right to ask questions of him." This assertion seemed to Miss Stackpole for a moment to bid defiance to comment; but at last she exclaimed: "Well, Isabel, if I didn't know you I might think you were heartless!" "Take care," said Isabel; "you're spoiling me." "I'm afraid I've done that already. I hope, at least," Miss Stackpole added, "that he may cross with Annie Climber!" Isabel learned from her the next morning that she had determined not to return to Gardencourt (where old Mr. Touchett had promised her a renewed welcome), but to await in London the arrival of the invitation that Mr. Bantling had promised her from his sister Lady Pensil. Miss Stackpole related very freely her conversation with Ralph Touchett's sociable friend and declared to Isabel that she really believed she had now got hold of something that would lead to something. On the receipt of Lady Pensil's letter--Mr. Bantling had virtually guaranteed the arrival of this document--she would immediately depart for Bedfordshire, and if Isabel cared to look out for her impressions in the Interviewer she would certainly find them. Henrietta was evidently going to see something of the inner life this time. "Do you know where you're drifting, Henrietta Stackpole?" Isabel asked, imitating the tone in which her friend had spoken the night before. "I'm drifting to a big position--that of the Queen of American Journalism. If my next letter isn't copied all over the West I'll swallow my penwiper!" She had arranged with her friend Miss Annie Climber, the young lady of the continental offers, that they should go together to make those purchases which were to constitute Miss Climber's farewell to a hemisphere in which she at least had been appreciated; and she presently repaired to Jermyn Street to pick up her companion. Shortly after her departure Ralph Touchett was announced, and as soon as he came in Isabel saw he had something on his mind. He very soon took his cousin into his confidence. He had received from his mother a telegram to the effect that his father had had a sharp attack of his old malady, that she was much alarmed and that she begged he would instantly return to Gardencourt. On this occasion at least Mrs. Touchett's devotion to the electric wire was not open to criticism. "I've judged it best to see the great doctor, Sir Matthew Hope, first," Ralph said; "by great good luck he's in town. He's to see me at half-past twelve, and I shall make sure of his coming down to Gardencourt--which he will do the more readily as he has already seen my father several times, both there and in London. There's an express at two-forty-five, which I shall take; and you'll come back with me or remain here a few days longer, exactly as you prefer." "I shall certainly go with you," Isabel returned. "I don't suppose I can be of any use to my uncle, but if he's ill I shall like to be near him." "I think you're fond of him," said Ralph with a certain shy pleasure in his face. "You appreciate him, which all the world hasn't done. The quality's too fine." "I quite adore him," Isabel after a moment said. "That's very well. After his son he's your greatest admirer." She welcomed this assurance, but she gave secretly a small sigh of relief at the thought that Mr. Touchett was one of those admirers who couldn't propose to marry her. This, however, was not what she spoke; she went on to inform Ralph that there were other reasons for her not remaining in London. She was tired of it and wished to leave it; and then Henrietta was going away--going to stay in Bedfordshire. "In Bedfordshire?" "With Lady Pensil, the sister of Mr. Bantling, who has answered for an invitation." Ralph was feeling anxious, but at this he broke into a laugh. Suddenly, none the less, his gravity returned. "Bantling's a man of courage. But if the invitation should get lost on the way?" "I thought the British post-office was impeccable." "The good Homer sometimes nods," said Ralph. "However," he went on more brightly, "the good Bantling never does, and, whatever happens, he'll take care of Henrietta." Ralph went to keep his appointment with Sir Matthew Hope, and Isabel made her arrangements for quitting Pratt's Hotel. Her uncle's danger touched her nearly, and while she stood before her open trunk, looking about her vaguely for what she should put into it, the tears suddenly rose to her eyes. It was perhaps for this reason that when Ralph came back at two o'clock to take her to the station she was not yet ready. He found Miss Stackpole, however, in the sitting-room, where she had just risen from her luncheon, and this lady immediately expressed her regret at his father's illness. "He's a grand old man," she said; "he's faithful to the last. If it's really to be the last--pardon my alluding to it, but you must often have thought of the possibility--I'm sorry that I shall not be at Gardencourt." "You'll amuse yourself much more in Bedfordshire." "I shall be sorry to amuse myself at such a time," said Henrietta with much propriety. But she immediately added: "I should like so to commemorate the closing scene." "My father may live a long time," said Ralph simply. Then, adverting to topics more cheerful, he interrogated Miss Stackpole as to her own future. Now that Ralph was in trouble she addressed him in a tone of larger allowance and told him that she was much indebted to him for having made her acquainted with Mr. Bantling. "He has told me just the things I want to know," she said; "all the society items and all about the royal family. I can't make out that what he tells me about the royal family is much to their credit; but he says that's only my peculiar way of looking at it. Well, all I want is that he should give me the facts; I can put them together quick enough, once I've got them." And she added that Mr. Bantling had been so good as to promise to come and take her out that afternoon. "To take you where?" Ralph ventured to enquire. "To Buckingham Palace. He's going to show me over it, so that I may get some idea how they live." "Ah," said Ralph, "we leave you in good hands. The first thing we shall hear is that you're invited to Windsor Castle." "If they ask me, I shall certainly go. Once I get started I'm not afraid. But for all that," Henrietta added in a moment, "I'm not satisfied; I'm not at peace about Isabel." "What is her last misdemeanour?" "Well, I've told you before, and I suppose there's no harm in my going on. I always finish a subject that I take up. Mr. Goodwood was here last night." Ralph opened his eyes; he even blushed a little--his blush being the sign of an emotion somewhat acute. He remembered that Isabel, in separating from him in Winchester Square, had repudiated his suggestion that her motive in doing so was the expectation of a visitor at Pratt's Hotel, and it was a new pang to him to have to suspect her of duplicity. On the other hand, he quickly said to himself, what concern was it of his that she should have made an appointment with a lover? Had it not been thought graceful in every age that young ladies should make a mystery of such appointments? Ralph gave Miss Stackpole a diplomatic answer. "I should have thought that, with the views you expressed to me the other day, this would satisfy you perfectly." "That he should come to see her? That was very well, as far as it went. It was a little plot of mine; I let him know that we were in London, and when it had been arranged that I should spend the evening out I sent him a word--the word we just utter to the 'wise.' I hoped he would find her alone; I won't pretend I didn't hope that you'd be out of the way. He came to see her, but he might as well have stayed away." "Isabel was cruel?"--and Ralph's face lighted with the relief of his cousin's not having shown duplicity. "I don't exactly know what passed between them. But she gave him no satisfaction--she sent him back to America." "Poor Mr. Goodwood!" Ralph sighed. "Her only idea seems to be to get rid of him," Henrietta went on. "Poor Mr. Goodwood!" Ralph repeated. The exclamation, it must be confessed, was automatic; it failed exactly to express his thoughts, which were taking another line. "You don't say that as if you felt it. I don't believe you care." "Ah," said Ralph, "you must remember that I don't know this interesting young man--that I've never seen him." "Well, I shall see him, and I shall tell him not to give up. If I didn't believe Isabel would come round," Miss Stackpole added--"well, I'd give up myself. I mean I'd give HER up!"

Isabel trembles in the aftermath of turning down Bachelor #2. Although she is shaken, Isabel is also proud that she has demonstrated the thing she has wanted all along: freedom. She feels as though she has proved something to herself and to Caspar. Henrietta returns, and Isabel is understandably short with her. She says that she cannot trust her old friend anymore. Henrietta is distraught to find out that Isabel has rejected Mr. Goodwood again. She really just doesn't want Isabel to marry a European. Henrietta asks Isabel where she's going in life, and Isabel says that she's happy not knowing. Isabel wants both Henrietta and Caspar Goodwood to leave her alone; in response, Henrietta warns her not to isolate herself too much. Henrietta decides to stay in London in order to get word from Mr. Bantling and Lady Pensil. She delights in the thought of rubbing elbows with royalty and writing a critically-acclaimed article about it. Ralph arrives with the news that Mr. Touchett's health has declined. Ralph goes to fetch a renowned doctor, Sir Matthew Hope. Isabel insists on going with Ralph, and checks out of the hotel. Henrietta gives her regrets to Ralph, with the assumption that this will be her last time seeing Mr. Touchett. Not one to ruin her plans, she's still going to visit Lady Pensil. Henrietta tells Ralph that Caspar Goodwood came to see Isabel last night. Ralph is saddened by the thought that Isabel would have lied to him about expecting a visitor. Henrietta tells Ralph that Isabel rejected Caspar again, and Ralph is relieved that Isabel didn't deceive him. Henrietta decides to talk with Caspar and encourage him not to give up on Isabel.

summary

Mrs. Touchett, before arriving in Paris, had fixed the day for her departure and by the middle of February had begun to travel southward. She interrupted her journey to pay a visit to her son, who at San Remo, on the Italian shore of the Mediterranean, had been spending a dull, bright winter beneath a slow-moving white umbrella. Isabel went with her aunt as a matter of course, though Mrs. Touchett, with homely, customary logic, had laid before her a pair of alternatives. "Now, of course, you're completely your own mistress and are as free as the bird on the bough. I don't mean you were not so before, but you're at present on a different footing--property erects a kind of barrier. You can do a great many things if you're rich which would be severely criticised if you were poor. You can go and come, you can travel alone, you can have your own establishment: I mean of course if you'll take a companion--some decayed gentlewoman, with a darned cashmere and dyed hair, who paints on velvet. You don't think you'd like that? Of course you can do as you please; I only want you to understand how much you're at liberty. You might take Miss Stackpole as your dame de compagnie; she'd keep people off very well. I think, however, that it's a great deal better you should remain with me, in spite of there being no obligation. It's better for several reasons, quite apart from your liking it. I shouldn't think you'd like it, but I recommend you to make the sacrifice. Of course whatever novelty there may have been at first in my society has quite passed away, and you see me as I am--a dull, obstinate, narrow-minded old woman." "I don't think you're at all dull," Isabel had replied to this. "But you do think I'm obstinate and narrow-minded? I told you so!" said Mrs. Touchett with much elation at being justified. Isabel remained for the present with her aunt, because, in spite of eccentric impulses, she had a great regard for what was usually deemed decent, and a young gentlewoman without visible relations had always struck her as a flower without foliage. It was true that Mrs. Touchett's conversation had never again appeared so brilliant as that first afternoon in Albany, when she sat in her damp waterproof and sketched the opportunities that Europe would offer to a young person of taste. 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. Isabel came at last to have a kind of undemonstrable pity for her; there seemed something so dreary in the condition of a person whose nature had, as it were, so little surface--offered so limited a face to the accretions of human contact. Nothing tender, nothing sympathetic, had ever had a chance to fasten upon it--no wind-sown blossom, no familiar softening moss. Her offered, her passive extent, in other words, was about that of a knife-edge. Isabel had reason to believe none the less that as she advanced in life she made more of those concessions to the sense of something obscurely distinct from convenience--more of them than she independently exacted. She was learning to sacrifice consistency to considerations of that inferior order for which the excuse must be found in the particular case. It was not to the credit of her absolute rectitude that she should have gone the longest way round to Florence in order to spend a few weeks with her invalid son; since in former years it had been one of her most definite convictions that when Ralph wished to see her he was at liberty to remember that Palazzo Crescentini contained a large apartment known as the quarter of the signorino. "I want to ask you something," Isabel said to this young man the day after her arrival at San Remo--"something I've thought more than once of asking you by letter, but that I've hesitated on the whole to write about. Face to face, nevertheless, my question seems easy enough. Did you know your father intended to leave me so much money?" Ralph stretched his legs a little further than usual and gazed a little more fixedly at the Mediterranean. "What does it matter, my dear Isabel, whether I knew? My father was very obstinate." "So," said the girl, "you did know." "Yes; he told me. We even talked it over a little." "What did he do it for?" asked Isabel abruptly. "Why, as a kind of compliment." "A compliment on what?" "On your so beautifully existing." "He liked me too much," she presently declared. "That's a way we all have." "If I believed that I should be very unhappy. Fortunately I don't believe it. I want to be treated with justice; I want nothing but that." "Very good. But you must remember that justice to a lovely being is after all a florid sort of sentiment." "I'm not a lovely being. How can you say that, at the very moment when I'm asking such odious questions? I must seem to you delicate!" "You seem to me troubled," said Ralph. "I am troubled." "About what?" For a moment she answered nothing; then she broke out: "Do you think it good for me suddenly to be made so rich? Henrietta doesn't." "Oh, hang Henrietta!" said Ralph coarsely, "If you ask me I'm delighted at it." "Is that why your father did it--for your amusement?" "I differ with Miss Stackpole," Ralph went on more gravely. "I think it very good for you to have means." Isabel looked at him with serious eyes. "I wonder whether you know what's good for me--or whether you care." "If I know depend upon it I care. Shall I tell you what it is? Not to torment yourself." "Not to torment you, I suppose you mean." "You can't do that; I'm proof. Take things more easily. Don't ask yourself so much whether this or that is good for you. 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. "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." She had listened eagerly, as I say; and it was her nature to understand quickly. "I wonder if you appreciate what you say. If you do, you take a great responsibility." "You frighten me a little, but I think I'm right," said Ralph, persisting in cheer. "All the same what you say is very true," Isabel pursued. "You could say nothing more true. I'm absorbed in myself--I look at life too much as a doctor's prescription. Why indeed should we perpetually be thinking whether things are good for us, as if we were patients lying in a hospital? Why should I be so afraid of not doing right? As if it mattered to the world whether I do right or wrong!" "You're a capital person to advise," said Ralph; "you take the wind out of my sails!" She looked at him as if she had not heard him--though she was following out the train of reflexion which he himself had kindled. "I try to care more about the world than about myself--but I always come back to myself. It's because I'm afraid." She stopped; her voice had trembled a little. "Yes, I'm afraid; I can't tell you. A large fortune means freedom, and I'm afraid of that. It's such a fine thing, and one should make such a good use of it. If one shouldn't one would be ashamed. And one must keep thinking; it's a constant effort. I'm not sure it's not a greater happiness to be powerless." "For weak people I've no doubt it's a greater happiness. For weak people the effort not to be contemptible must be great." "And how do you know I'm not weak?" Isabel asked. "Ah," Ralph answered with a flush that the girl noticed, "if you are I'm awfully sold!" The charm of the Mediterranean coast only deepened for our heroine on acquaintance, for it was the threshold of Italy, the gate of admirations. Italy, as yet imperfectly seen and felt, stretched before her as a land of promise, a land in which a love of the beautiful might be comforted by endless knowledge. Whenever she strolled upon the shore with her cousin--and she was the companion of his daily walk--she looked across the sea, with longing eyes, to where she knew that Genoa lay. She was glad to pause, however, on the edge of this larger adventure; there was such a thrill even in the preliminary hovering. It affected her moreover as a peaceful interlude, as a hush of the drum and fife in a career which she had little warrant as yet for regarding as agitated, but which nevertheless she was constantly picturing to herself by the light of her hopes, her fears, her fancies, her ambitions, her predilections, and which reflected these subjective accidents in a manner sufficiently dramatic. Madame Merle had predicted to Mrs. Touchett that after their young friend had put her hand into her pocket half a dozen times she would be reconciled to the idea that it had been filled by a munificent uncle; and the event justified, as it had so often justified before, that lady's perspicacity. Ralph Touchett had praised his cousin for being morally inflammable, that is for being quick to take a hint that was meant as good advice. His advice had perhaps helped the matter; she had at any rate before leaving San Remo grown used to feeling rich. The consciousness in question found a proper place in rather a dense little group of ideas that she had about herself, and often it was by no means the least agreeable. It took perpetually for granted a thousand good intentions. She lost herself in a maze of visions; the fine things to be done by a rich, independent, generous girl who took a large human view of occasions and obligations were sublime in the mass. Her fortune therefore became to her mind a part of her better self; it gave her importance, gave her even, to her own imagination, a certain ideal beauty. What it did for her in the imagination of others is another affair, and on this point we must also touch in time. The visions I have just spoken of were mixed with other debates. Isabel liked better to think of the future than of the past; but at times, as she listened to the murmur of the Mediterranean waves, her glance took a backward flight. It rested upon two figures which, in spite of increasing distance, were still sufficiently salient; they were recognisable without difficulty as those of Caspar Goodwood and Lord Warburton. It was strange how quickly these images of energy had fallen into the background of our young lady's life. 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; 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; but this was not to be for another year and a half, and in that time a great many things might happen. She had indeed failed to say to herself that her American suitor might find some other girl more comfortable to woo; because, though it was certain many other girls would prove so, she had not the smallest belief that this merit would attract him. But she reflected that she herself might know the humiliation of change, might really, for that matter, come to the end of the things that were not Caspar (even though there appeared so many of them), and find rest in those very elements of his presence which struck her now as impediments to the finer respiration. It was conceivable that these impediments should some day prove a sort of blessing in disguise--a clear and quiet harbour enclosed by a brave granite breakwater. But that day could only come in its order, and she couldn't wait for it with folded hands. That Lord Warburton should continue to cherish her image seemed to her more than a noble humility or an enlightened pride ought to wish to reckon with. She had so definitely undertaken to preserve no record of what had passed between them that a corresponding effort on his own part would be eminently just. This was not, as it may seem, merely a theory tinged with sarcasm. Isabel candidly believed that his lordship would, in the usual phrase, get over his disappointment. He had been deeply affected--this she believed, and she was still capable of deriving pleasure from the belief; but it was absurd that a man both so intelligent and so honourably dealt with should cultivate a scar out of proportion to any wound. Englishmen liked moreover to be comfortable, said Isabel, and there could be little comfort for Lord Warburton, in the long run, in brooding over a self-sufficient American girl who had been but a casual acquaintance. She flattered herself that, should she hear from one day to another that he had married some young woman of his own country who had done more to deserve him, she should receive the news without a pang even of surprise. It would have proved that he believed she was firm--which was what she wished to seem to him. That alone was grateful to her pride.

Mrs. Touchett goes to San Remo, Italy to visit Ralph. Isabel decides to go with her, figuring it's better to travel with a relation, even with her newfound financial independence. Isabel is no longer as impressed with Mrs. Touchett as she was when her aunt first visited her in New York. Isabel asks Ralph whether he knew about the inheritance that Mr. Touchett left for her. Isabel does not seem to know what to do with herself, now that she is wealthy. Ralph recommends that Isabel think less and just enjoy her life with the new means she has received. Isabel agrees with Ralph's advice, figuring that there's no reason why she must always strive to be right. Isabel confesses that she's afraid of the freedom a large amount of money can bring. Ralph says that it is only a problem for the weak, and Isabel is most certainly not weak. After talking with Ralph, Isabel feels better and more comfortable with her new wealthy persona. In the back of Isabel's mind, Caspar Goodwood and Lord Warburton still linger. She feels sure that Lord Warburton has forgotten about her.

summary

Madame Merle, who had come to Florence on Mrs. Touchett's arrival at the invitation of this lady--Mrs. Touchett offering her for a month the hospitality of Palazzo Crescentini--the judicious Madame Merle spoke to Isabel afresh about Gilbert Osmond and expressed the hope she might know him; making, however, no such point of the matter as we have seen her do in recommending the girl herself to Mr. Osmond's attention. The reason of this was perhaps that Isabel offered no resistance whatever to Madame Merle's proposal. In Italy, as in England, the lady had a multitude of friends, both among the natives of the country and its heterogeneous visitors. She had mentioned to Isabel most of the people the girl would find it well to "meet"--of course, she said, Isabel could know whomever in the wide world she would--and had placed Mr. Osmond near the top of the list. He was an old friend of her own; she had known him these dozen years; he was one of the cleverest and most agreeable men--well, in Europe simply. He was altogether above the respectable average; quite another affair. He wasn't a professional charmer--far from it, and the effect he produced depended a good deal on the state of his nerves and his spirits. When not in the right mood he could fall as low as any one, saved only by his looking at such hours rather like a demoralised prince in exile. But if he cared or was interested or rightly challenged--just exactly rightly it had to be--then one felt his cleverness and his distinction. Those qualities didn't depend, in him, as in so many people, on his not committing or exposing himself. He had his perversities--which indeed Isabel would find to be the case with all the men really worth knowing--and didn't cause his light to shine equally for all persons. Madame Merle, however, thought she could undertake that for Isabel he would be brilliant. He was easily bored, too easily, and dull people always put him out; but a quick and cultivated girl like Isabel would give him a stimulus which was too absent from his life. At any rate he was a person not to miss. One shouldn't attempt to live in Italy without making a friend of Gilbert Osmond, who knew more about the country than any one except two or three German professors. And if they had more knowledge than he it was he who had most perception and taste--being artistic through and through. Isabel remembered that her friend had spoken of him during their plunge, at Gardencourt, into the deeps of talk, and wondered a little what was the nature of the tie binding these superior spirits. She felt that Madame Merle's ties always somehow had histories, and such an impression was part of the interest created by this inordinate woman. As regards her relations with Mr. Osmond, however, she hinted at nothing but a long-established calm friendship. Isabel said she should be happy to know a person who had enjoyed so high a confidence for so many years. "You ought to see a great many men," Madame Merle remarked; "you ought to see as many as possible, so as to get used to them." "Used to them?" Isabel repeated with that solemn stare which sometimes seemed to proclaim her deficient in the sense of comedy. "Why, I'm not afraid of them--I'm as used to them as the cook to the butcher-boys." "Used to them, I mean, so as to despise them. That's what one comes to with most of them. You'll pick out, for your society, the few whom you don't despise." This was a note of cynicism that Madame Merle didn't often allow herself to sound; but Isabel was not alarmed, for she had never supposed that as one saw more of the world the sentiment of respect became the most active of one's emotions. It was excited, none the less, by the beautiful city of Florence, which pleased her not less than Madame Merle had promised; and if her unassisted perception had not been able to gauge its charms she had clever companions as priests to the mystery. She was--in no want indeed of esthetic illumination, for Ralph found it a joy that renewed his own early passion to act as cicerone to his eager young kinswoman. Madame Merle remained at home; she had seen the treasures of Florence again and again and had always something else to do. But she talked of all things with remarkable vividness of memory--she recalled the right-hand corner of the large Perugino and the position of the hands of the Saint Elizabeth in the picture next to it. She had her opinions as to the character of many famous works of art, differing often from Ralph with great sharpness and defending her interpretations with as much ingenuity as good-humour. Isabel listened to the discussions taking place between the two with a sense that she might derive much benefit from them and that they were among the advantages she couldn't have enjoyed for instance in Albany. In the clear May mornings before the formal breakfast--this repast at Mrs. Touchett's was served at twelve o'clock--she wandered with her cousin through the narrow and sombre Florentine streets, resting a while in the thicker dusk of some historic church or the vaulted chambers of some dispeopled convent. She went to the galleries and palaces; she looked at the pictures and statues that had hitherto been great names to her, and exchanged for a knowledge which was sometimes a limitation a presentiment which proved usually to have been a blank. She performed all those acts of mental prostration in which, on a first visit to Italy, youth and enthusiasm so freely indulge; she felt her heart beat in the presence of immortal genius and knew the sweetness of rising tears in eyes to which faded fresco and darkened marble grew dim. But the return, every day, was even pleasanter than the going forth; the return into the wide, monumental court of the great house in which Mrs. Touchett, many years before, had established herself, and into the high, cool rooms where the carven rafters and pompous frescoes of the sixteenth century looked down on the familiar commodities of the age of advertisement. Mrs. Touchett inhabited an historic building in a narrow street whose very name recalled the strife of medieval factions; 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. Gilbert Osmond came to see Madame Merle, who presented him to the young lady lurking at the other side of the room. Isabel took on this occasion little part in the talk; she scarcely even smiled when the others turned to her invitingly; she sat there as if she had been at the play and had paid even a large sum for her place. Mrs. Touchett was not present, and these two had it, for the effect of brilliancy, all their own way. They talked of the Florentine, the Roman, the cosmopolite world, and might have been distinguished performers figuring for a charity. It all had the rich readiness that would have come from rehearsal. Madame Merle appealed to her as if she had been on the stage, but she could ignore any learnt cue without spoiling the scene--though of course she thus put dreadfully in the wrong the friend who had told Mr. Osmond she could be depended on. This was no matter for once; even if more had been involved she could have made no attempt to shine. There was something in the visitor that checked her and held her in suspense--made it more important she should get an impression of him than that she should produce one herself. Besides, she had little skill in producing an impression which she knew to be expected: nothing could be happier, in general, than to seem dazzling, but she had a perverse unwillingness to glitter by arrangement. Mr. Osmond, to do him justice, had a well-bred air of expecting nothing, a quiet ease that covered everything, even the first show of his own wit. This was the more grateful as his face, his head, was sensitive; he was not handsome, but he was fine, as fine as one of the drawings in the long gallery above the bridge of the Uffizi. And his very voice was fine--the more strangely that, with its clearness, it yet somehow wasn't sweet. This had had really to do with making her abstain from interference. His utterance was the vibration of glass, and if she had put out her finger she might have changed the pitch and spoiled the concert. Yet before he went she had to speak. "Madame Merle," he said, "consents to come up to my hill-top some day next week and drink tea in my garden. It would give me much pleasure if you would come with her. It's thought rather pretty--there's what they call a general view. My daughter too would be so glad--or rather, for she's too young to have strong emotions, I should be so glad--so very glad." And Mr. Osmond paused with a slight air of embarrassment, leaving his sentence unfinished. "I should be so happy if you could know my daughter," he went on a moment afterwards. Isabel replied that she should be delighted to see Miss Osmond and that if Madame Merle would show her the way to the hill-top she should be very grateful. Upon this assurance the visitor took his leave; after which Isabel fully expected her friend would scold her for having been so stupid. But to her surprise that lady, who indeed never fell into the mere matter-of-course, said to her in a few moments, "You were charming, my dear; you were just as one would have wished you. You're never disappointing." A rebuke might possibly have been irritating, though it is much more probable that Isabel would have taken it in good part; but, strange to say, the words that Madame Merle actually used caused her the first feeling of displeasure she had known this ally to excite. "That's more than I intended," she answered coldly. "I'm under no obligation that I know of to charm Mr. Osmond." Madame Merle perceptibly flushed, but we know it was not her habit to retract. "My dear child, I didn't speak for him, poor man; I spoke for yourself. It's not of course a question as to his liking you; it matters little whether he likes you or not! But I thought you liked HIM." "I did," said Isabel honestly. "But I don't see what that matters either." "Everything that concerns you matters to me," Madame Merle returned with her weary nobleness; "especially when at the same time another old friend's concerned." Whatever Isabel's obligations may have been to Mr. Osmond, it must be admitted that she found them sufficient to lead her to put to Ralph sundry questions about him. She thought Ralph's judgements distorted by his trials, but she flattered herself she had learned to make allowance for that. "Do I know him?" said her cousin. "Oh, yes, I 'know' him; not well, but on the whole enough. I've never cultivated his society, and he apparently has never found mine indispensable to his happiness. Who is he, what is he? He's a vague, unexplained American who has been living these thirty years, or less, in Italy. Why do I call him unexplained? Only as a cover for my ignorance; I don't know his antecedents, his family, his origin. For all I do know he may be a prince in disguise; he rather looks like one, by the way--like a prince who has abdicated in a fit of fastidiousness and has been in a state of disgust ever since. He used to live in Rome; but of late years he has taken up his abode here; I remember hearing him say that Rome has grown vulgar. He has a great dread of vulgarity; that's his special line; he hasn't any other that I know of. He lives on his income, which I suspect of not being vulgarly large. He's a poor but honest gentleman that's what he calls himself. He married young and lost his wife, and I believe he has a daughter. He also has a sister, who's married to some small Count or other, of these parts; I remember meeting her of old. She's nicer than he, I should think, but rather impossible. I remember there used to be some stories about her. I don't think I recommend you to know her. But why don't you ask Madame Merle about these people? She knows them all much better than I." "I ask you because I want your opinion as well as hers," said Isabel. "A fig for my opinion! If you fall in love with Mr. Osmond what will you care for that?" "Not much, probably. But meanwhile it has a certain importance. The more information one has about one's dangers the better." "I don't agree to that--it may make them dangers. We know too much about people in these days; we hear too much. Our ears, our minds, our mouths, are stuffed with personalities. Don't mind anything any one tells you about any one else. Judge everyone and everything for yourself." "That's what I try to do," said Isabel "but when you do that people call you conceited." "You're not to mind them--that's precisely my argument; not to mind what they say about yourself any more than what they say about your friend or your enemy." Isabel considered. "I think you're right; but there are some things I can't help minding: for instance when my friend's attacked or when I myself am praised." "Of course you're always at liberty to judge the critic. Judge people as critics, however," Ralph added, "and you'll condemn them all!" "I shall see Mr. Osmond for myself," said Isabel. "I've promised to pay him a visit." "To pay him a visit?" "To go and see his view, his pictures, his daughter--I don't know exactly what. Madame Merle's to take me; she tells me a great many ladies call on him." "Ah, with Madame Merle you may go anywhere, de confiance," said Ralph. "She knows none but the best people." Isabel said no more about Mr. Osmond, but she presently remarked to her cousin that she was not satisfied with his tone about Madame Merle. "It seems to me you insinuate things about her. I don't know what you mean, but if you've any grounds for disliking her I think you should either mention them frankly or else say nothing at all." Ralph, however, resented this charge with more apparent earnestness than he commonly used. "I speak of Madame Merle exactly as I speak to her: with an even exaggerated respect." "Exaggerated, precisely. That's what I complain of." "I do so because Madame Merle's merits are exaggerated." "By whom, pray? By me? If so I do her a poor service." "No, no; by herself." "Ah, I protest!" Isabel earnestly cried. "If ever there was a woman who made small claims--!" "You put your finger on it," Ralph interrupted. "Her modesty's exaggerated. She has no business with small claims--she has a perfect right to make large ones." "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." "A chance for what?" "Well, say to call her a fool! She's the only woman I know who has but that one little fault." Isabel turned away with impatience. "I don't understand you; you're too paradoxical for my plain mind." "Let me explain. When I say she exaggerates I don't mean it in the vulgar sense--that she boasts, overstates, gives too fine an account of herself. I mean literally that she pushes the search for perfection too far--that her merits are in themselves overstrained. She's too good, too kind, too clever, too learned, too accomplished, too everything. She's too complete, in a word. I confess to you that she acts on my nerves and that I feel about her a good deal as that intensely human Athenian felt about Aristides the Just." Isabel looked hard at her cousin; but the mocking spirit, if it lurked in his words, failed on this occasion to peep from his face. "Do you wish Madame Merle to be banished?" "By no means. She's much too good company. I delight in Madame Merle," said Ralph Touchett simply. "You're very odious, sir!" Isabel exclaimed. And then she asked him if he knew anything that was not to the honour of her brilliant friend. "Nothing whatever. Don't you see that's just what I mean? On the character of every one else you may find some little black speck; if I were to take half an hour to it, some day, I've no doubt I should be able to find one on yours. For my own, of course, I'm spotted like a leopard. But on Madame Merle's nothing, nothing, nothing!" "That's just what I think!" said Isabel with a toss of her head. "That is why I like her so much." "She's a capital person for you to know. Since you wish to see the world you couldn't have a better guide." "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. Ralph Touchett took his refreshment wherever he could find it, and he would not have forgiven himself if he had been left wholly unbeguiled by such a mistress of the social art. There are deep-lying sympathies and antipathies, and it may have been that, in spite of the administered justice she enjoyed at his hands, her absence from his mother's house would not have made life barren to him. But Ralph Touchett had learned more or less inscrutably to attend, and there could have been nothing so "sustained" to attend to as the general performance of Madame Merle. He tasted her in sips, he let her stand, with an opportuneness she herself could not have surpassed. There were moments when he felt almost sorry for her; and these, oddly enough, were the moments when his kindness was least demonstrative. He was sure she had been yearningly ambitious and that what she had visibly accomplished was far below her secret measure. She had got herself into perfect training, but had won none of the prizes. She was always plain Madame Merle, the widow of a Swiss negociant, with a small income and a large acquaintance, who stayed with people a great deal and was almost as universally "liked" as some new volume of smooth twaddle. The contrast between this position and any one of some half-dozen others that he supposed to have at various moments engaged her hope had an element of the tragical. His mother thought he got on beautifully with their genial guest; to Mrs. Touchett's sense two persons who dealt so largely in too-ingenious theories of conduct--that is of their own--would have much in common. He had given due consideration to Isabel's intimacy with her eminent friend, having long since made up his mind that he could not, without opposition, keep his cousin to himself; and he made the best of it, as he had done of worse things. He believed it would take care of itself; it wouldn't last forever. Neither of these two superior persons knew the other as well as she supposed, and when each had made an important discovery or two there would be, if not a rupture, at least a relaxation. Meanwhile he was quite willing to admit that the conversation of the elder lady was an advantage to the younger, who had a great deal to learn and would doubtless learn it better from Madame Merle than from some other instructors of the young. It was not probable that Isabel would be injured.

Madame Merle returns to Palazzo Crescentini, Mrs. Touchett's home in Florence. Madame Merle recommends Osmond to Isabel once more, telling her of his impressive traits. She ominously tells Isabel that she should interact with more men, so that she gets "used" to them - that is to say, so she learns which ones to despise. Uh... huh. Okay, Madame Merle. Ralph takes Isabel out on the town; she's delighted with Florence. Madame Merle has been there many times before , and can converse with them about the city, although she does not go out with them. Isabel loves Mrs. Touchett's house, and thinks that it is so rich with history and tradition that it's like living in the past. Gilbert Osmond pays a visit to Madame Merle and Isabel. Madame Merle and Osmond talk for most of the time and Isabel, for once, is mostly silent. Osmond invites Madame Merle and Isabel to his house next week. He suggests that he would like Isabel to meet Pansy. Isabel accepts the invitation. After Osmond leaves, Madame Merle commends Isabel for behaving just as she should have. Condescend much? Isabel is duly annoyed by this comment, and Madame Merle sweet-talks her back into a good mood. Isabel asks Ralph about Osmond, and Ralph confesses that he doesn't know much. He suspects that there's something shady about Osmond's sister. Ralph recommends that Isabel follows her own instincts, and doesn't listen to people's opinions about others. Ralph says that, as long as Isabel is with Madame Merle, she's in good hands. Isabel detects the usual trace of sarcasm when Ralph talks about Madame Merle, and asks him about it. Ralph says that Madame Merle is too perfect and too modest for how perfect she is. Right on the dot, Ralph. However, despite his misgivings about Madame Merle's creepy so-called perfection, he figures that Isabel can benefit from being friends with the older woman. We'll see about that....

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While this sufficiently intimate colloquy (prolonged for some time after we cease to follow it) went forward Madame Merle and her companion, breaking a silence of some duration, had begun to exchange remarks. They were sitting in an attitude of unexpressed expectancy; an attitude especially marked on the part of the Countess Gemini, who, being of a more nervous temperament than her friend, practised with less success the art of disguising impatience. What these ladies were waiting for would not have been apparent and was perhaps not very definite to their own minds. Madame Merle waited for Osmond to release their young friend from her tete-a-tete, and the Countess waited because Madame Merle did. The Countess, moreover, by waiting, found the time ripe for one of her pretty perversities. She might have desired for some minutes to place it. Her brother wandered with Isabel to the end of the garden, to which point her eyes followed them. "My dear," she then observed to her companion, "you'll excuse me if I don't congratulate you!" "Very willingly, for I don't in the least know why you should." "Haven't you a little plan that you think rather well of?" And the Countess nodded at the sequestered couple. Madame Merle's eyes took the same direction; then she looked serenely at her neighbour. "You know I never understand you very well," she smiled. "No one can understand better than you when you wish. I see that just now you DON'T wish." "You say things to me that no one else does," said Madame Merle gravely, yet without bitterness. "You mean things you don't like? Doesn't Osmond sometimes say such things?" "What your brother says has a point." "Yes, a poisoned one sometimes. If you mean that I'm not so clever as he you mustn't think I shall suffer from your sense of our difference. But it will be much better that you should understand me." "Why so?" asked Madame Merle. "To what will it conduce?" "If I don't approve of your plan you ought to know it in order to appreciate the danger of my interfering with it." 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." "No, I've not had time. I've seen the girl but this once," said the Countess, "and the conviction has suddenly come to me. I like her very much." "So do I," Madame Merle mentioned. "You've a strange way of showing it." "Surely I've given her the advantage of making your acquaintance." "That indeed," piped the Countess, "is perhaps the best thing that could happen to her!" Madame Merle said nothing for some time. The Countess's manner was odious, was really low; but it was an old story, and with her eyes upon the violet slope of Monte Morello she gave herself up to reflection. "My dear lady," she finally resumed, "I advise you not to agitate yourself. The matter you allude to concerns three persons much stronger of purpose than yourself." "Three persons? You and Osmond of course. But is Miss Archer also very strong of purpose?" "Quite as much so as we." "Ah then," said the Countess radiantly, "if I convince her it's her interest to resist you she'll do so successfully!" "Resist us? Why do you express yourself so coarsely? She's not exposed to compulsion or deception." "I'm not sure of that. You're capable of anything, you and Osmond. I don't mean Osmond by himself, and I don't mean you by yourself. But together you're dangerous--like some chemical combination." "You had better leave us alone then," smiled Madame Merle. "I don't mean to touch you--but I shall talk to that girl." "My poor Amy," Madame Merle murmured, "I don't see what has got into your head." "I take an interest in her--that's what has got into my head. I like her." Madame Merle hesitated a moment. "I don't think she likes you." The Countess's bright little eyes expanded and her face was set in a grimace. "Ah, you ARE dangerous--even by yourself!" "If you want her to like you don't abuse your brother to her," said Madame Merle. "I don't suppose you pretend she has fallen in love with him in two interviews." Madame Merle looked a moment at Isabel and at the master of the house. He was leaning against the parapet, facing her, his arms folded; and she at present was evidently not lost in the mere impersonal view, persistently as she gazed at it. As Madame Merle watched her she lowered her eyes; she was listening, possibly with a certain embarrassment, while she pressed the point of her parasol into the path. Madame Merle rose from her chair. "Yes, I think so!" she pronounced. The shabby footboy, summoned by Pansy--he might, tarnished as to livery and quaint as to type, have issued from some stray sketch of old-time manners, been "put in" by the brush of a Longhi or a Goya--had come out with a small table and placed it on the grass, and then had gone back and fetched the tea-tray; after which he had again disappeared, to return with a couple of chairs. Pansy had watched these proceedings with the deepest interest, standing with her small hands folded together upon the front of her scanty frock; but she had not presumed to offer assistance. When the tea-table had been arranged, however, she gently approached her aunt. "Do you think papa would object to my making the tea?" The Countess looked at her with a deliberately critical gaze and without answering her question. "My poor niece," she said, "is that your best frock?" "Ah no," Pansy answered, "it's just a little toilette for common occasions." "Do you call it a common occasion when I come to see you?--to say nothing of Madame Merle and the pretty lady yonder." Pansy reflected a moment, turning gravely from one of the persons mentioned to the other. Then her face broke into its perfect smile. "I have a pretty dress, but even that one's very simple. Why should I expose it beside your beautiful things?" "Because it's the prettiest you have; for me you must always wear the prettiest. Please put it on the next time. It seems to me they don't dress you so well as they might." The child sparingly stroked down her antiquated skirt. "It's a good little dress to make tea--don't you think? Don't you believe papa would allow me?" "Impossible for me to say, my child," said the Countess. "For me, your father's ideas are unfathomable. Madame Merle understands them better. Ask HER." Madame Merle smiled with her usual grace. "It's a weighty question--let me think. It seems to me it would please your father to see a careful little daughter making his tea. It's the proper duty of the daughter of the house--when she grows up." "So it seems to me, Madame Merle!" Pansy cried. "You shall see how well I'll make it. A spoonful for each." And she began to busy herself at the table. "Two spoonfuls for me," said the Countess, who, with Madame Merle, remained for some moments watching her. "Listen to me, Pansy," the Countess resumed at last. "I should like to know what you think of your visitor." "Ah, she's not mine--she's papa's," Pansy objected. "Miss Archer came to see you as well," said Madame Merle. "I'm very happy to hear that. She has been very polite to me." "Do you like her then?" the Countess asked. "She's charming--charming," Pansy repeated in her little neat conversational tone. "She pleases me thoroughly." "And how do you think she pleases your father?" "Ah really, Countess!" murmured Madame Merle dissuasively. "Go and call them to tea," she went on to the child. "You'll see if they don't like it!" Pansy declared; and departed to summon the others, who had still lingered at the end of the terrace. "If Miss Archer's to become her mother it's surely interesting to know if the child likes her," said the Countess. "If your brother marries again it won't be for Pansy's sake," Madame Merle replied. "She'll soon be sixteen, and after that she'll begin to need a husband rather than a stepmother." "And will you provide the husband as well?" "I shall certainly take an interest in her marrying fortunately. I imagine you'll do the same." "Indeed I shan't!" cried the Countess. "Why should I, of all women, set such a price on a husband?" "You didn't marry fortunately; that's what I'm speaking of. When I say a husband I mean a good one." "There are no good ones. Osmond won't be a good one." Madame Merle closed her eyes a moment. "You're irritated just now; I don't know why," she presently said. "I don't think you'll really object either to your brother's or to your niece's marrying, when the time comes for them to do so; and as regards Pansy I'm confident that we shall some day have the pleasure of looking for a husband for her together. Your large acquaintance will be a great help." "Yes, I'm irritated," the Countess answered. "You often irritate me. Your own coolness is fabulous. You're a strange woman." "It's much better that we should always act together," Madame Merle went on. "Do you mean that as a threat?" asked the Countess rising. Madame Merle shook her head as for quiet amusement. "No indeed, you've not my coolness!" Isabel and Mr. Osmond were now slowly coming toward them and Isabel had taken Pansy by the hand. "Do you pretend to believe he'd make her happy?" the Countess demanded. "If he should marry Miss Archer I suppose he'd behave like a gentleman." The Countess jerked herself into a succession of attitudes. "Do you mean as most gentlemen behave? That would be much to be thankful for! Of course Osmond's a gentleman; his own sister needn't be reminded of that. But does he think he can marry any girl he happens to pick out? Osmond's a gentleman, of course; but I must say I've NEVER, no, no, never, seen any one of Osmond's pretensions! What they're all founded on is more than I can say. I'm his own sister; I might be supposed to know. Who is he, if you please? What has he ever done? If there had been anything particularly grand in his origin--if he were made of some superior clay--I presume I should have got some inkling of it. If there had been any great honours or splendours in the family I should certainly have made the most of them: 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. Every one'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." "You may say what you please," said Madame Merle, who had listened to this quick outbreak none the less attentively, we may believe, because her eye wandered away from the speaker and her hands busied themselves with adjusting the knots of ribbon on her dress. "You Osmonds are a fine race--your blood must flow from some very pure source. Your brother, like an intelligent man, has had the conviction of it if he has not had the proofs. You're modest about it, but you yourself are extremely distinguished. What do you say about your niece? The child's a little princess. Nevertheless," Madame Merle added, "it won't be an easy matter for Osmond to marry Miss Archer. Yet he can try." "I hope she'll refuse him. It will take him down a little." "We mustn't forget that he is one of the cleverest of men." "I've heard you say that before, but I haven't yet discovered what he has done." "What he has done? He has done nothing that has had to be undone. And he has known how to wait." "To wait for Miss Archer's money? How much of it is there?" "That's not what I mean," said Madame Merle. "Miss Archer has seventy thousand pounds." "Well, it's a pity she's so charming," the Countess declared. "To be sacrificed, any girl would do. She needn't be superior." "If she weren't superior your brother would never look at her. He must have the best." "Yes," returned the Countess as they went forward a little to meet the others, "he's very hard to satisfy. That makes me tremble for her happiness!"

Left to their own devices, Countess Gemini and Madame Merle let their claws out. Unfortunately, the Countess' claws are much duller and less effective than Madame Merle's. Countess Gemini sees that Madame Merle is trying to set up Osmond and Isabel, and she doesn't like the looks of it. Countess Gemini thinks that Madame Merle is doing Isabel a great disservice by pushing her in Osmond's direction, and feebly implies that she will try to warn Isabel of the trap that's laid out for her. Madame Merle thinks that Isabel has fallen in love with Osmond already. Pansy, in her child-like way, supervises as a servant set up a table and chairs outside. Countess Gemini asks Pansy to wear a prettier dress the next time she shows up. Countess Gemini asks Pansy what she thinks of Isabel. Pansy says that Isabel is a charming woman. Pansy delights in their trust in her to make tea for the group. Madame Merle says that it doesn't matter what Pansy thinks of Isabel, because she'll soon be old enough to be looking for a husband herself. Madame Merle predicts that she and Countess Gemini will both have a hand in selecting Pansy's husband. Countess Gemini claims that she will not have a part in that. Countess Gemini passionately believes that her brother will make a terrible husband. She reveals an essential truth about Osmond - that there is nothing special in him, yet he's full of himself. Madame Merle calmly says that it won't be easy for Osmond to successfully court Isabel, but he can try. Madame Merle says that Osmond always has to have the best . To Countess Gemini's chagrin, she learns that Isabel is worth seventy thousand pounds. She thinks it a pity that such a fine person should be sacrificed simply for her money, and worries about what her brother will do to the girl.

summary

I may not attempt to report in its fulness our young woman's response to the deep appeal of Rome, to analyse her feelings as she trod the pavement of the Forum or to number her pulsations as she crossed the threshold of Saint Peter's. It is enough to say that her impression was such as might have been expected of a person of her freshness and her eagerness. She had always been fond of history, and here was history in the stones of the street and the atoms of the sunshine. She had an imagination that kindled at the mention of great deeds, and wherever she turned some great deed had been acted. These things strongly moved her, but moved her all inwardly. It seemed to her companions that she talked less than usual, and Ralph Touchett, when he appeared to be looking listlessly and awkwardly over her head, was really dropping on her an intensity of observation. By her own measure she was very happy; she would even have been willing to take these hours for the happiest she was ever to know. The sense of the terrible human past was heavy to her, but that of something altogether contemporary would suddenly give it wings that it could wave in the blue. Her consciousness was so mixed that she scarcely knew where the different parts of it would lead her, and she went about in a repressed ecstasy of contemplation, seeing often in the things she looked at a great deal more than was there, and yet not seeing many of the items enumerated in her Murray. Rome, as Ralph said, confessed to the psychological moment. The herd of reechoing tourists had departed and most of the solemn places had relapsed into solemnity. The sky was a blaze of blue, and the plash of the fountains in their mossy niches had lost its chill and doubled its music. On the corners of the warm, bright streets one stumbled on bundles of flowers. Our friends had gone one afternoon--it was the third of their stay--to look at the latest excavations in the Forum, these labours having been for some time previous largely extended. They had descended from the modern street to the level of the Sacred Way, along which they wandered with a reverence of step which was not the same on the part of each. Henrietta Stackpole was struck with the fact that ancient Rome had been paved a good deal like New York, and even found an analogy between the deep chariot-ruts traceable in the antique street and the overjangled iron grooves which express the intensity of American life. The sun had begun to sink, the air was a golden haze, and the long shadows of broken column and vague pedestal leaned across the field of ruin. Henrietta wandered away with Mr. Bantling, whom it was apparently delightful to her to hear speak of Julius Caesar as a "cheeky old boy," and Ralph addressed such elucidations as he was prepared to offer to the attentive ear of our heroine. One of the humble archeologists who hover about the place had put himself at the disposal of the two, and repeated his lesson with a fluency which the decline of the season had done nothing to impair. A process of digging was on view in a remote corner of the Forum, and he presently remarked that if it should please the signori to go and watch it a little they might see something of interest. The proposal commended itself more to Ralph than to Isabel, weary with much wandering; so that she admonished her companion to satisfy his curiosity while she patiently awaited his return. The hour and the place were much to her taste--she should enjoy being briefly alone. Ralph accordingly went off with the cicerone while Isabel sat down on a prostrate column near the foundations of the Capitol. She wanted a short solitude, but she was not long to enjoy it. Keen as was her interest in the rugged relics of the Roman past that lay scattered about her and in which the corrosion of centuries had still left so much of individual life, her thoughts, after resting a while on these things, had wandered, by a concatenation of stages it might require some subtlety to trace, to regions and objects charged with a more active appeal. From the Roman past to Isabel Archer's future was a long stride, but her imagination had taken it in a single flight and now hovered in slow circles over the nearer and richer field. She was so absorbed in her thoughts, as she bent her eyes upon a row of cracked but not dislocated slabs covering the ground at her feet, that she had not heard the sound of approaching footsteps before a shadow was thrown across the line of her vision. She looked up and saw a gentleman--a gentleman who was not Ralph come back to say that the excavations were a bore. This personage was startled as she was startled; he stood there baring his head to her perceptibly pale surprise. "Lord Warburton!" Isabel exclaimed as she rose. "I had no idea it was you. I turned that corner and came upon you." She looked about her to explain. "I'm alone, but my companions have just left me. My cousin's gone to look at the work over there." "Ah yes; I see." And Lord Warburton's eyes wandered vaguely in the direction she had indicated. He stood firmly before her now; he had recovered his balance and seemed to wish to show it, though very kindly. "Don't let me disturb you," he went on, looking at her dejected pillar. "I'm afraid you're tired." "Yes, I'm rather tired." She hesitated a moment, but sat down again. "Don't let me interrupt you," she added. "Oh dear, I'm quite alone, I've nothing on earth to do. I had no idea you were in Rome. I've just come from the East. I'm only passing through." "You've been making a long journey," said Isabel, who had learned from Ralph that Lord Warburton was absent from England. "Yes, I came abroad for six months--soon after I saw you last. I've been in Turkey and Asia Minor; I came the other day from Athens." He managed not to be awkward, but he wasn't easy, and after a longer look at the girl he came down to nature. "Do you wish me to leave you, or will you let me stay a little?" She took it all humanely. "I don't wish you to leave me, Lord Warburton; I'm very glad to see you." "Thank you for saying that. May I sit down?" The fluted shaft on which she had taken her seat would have afforded a resting-place to several persons, and there was plenty of room even for a highly-developed Englishman. This fine specimen of that great class seated himself near our young lady, and in the course of five minutes he had asked her several questions, taken rather at random and to which, as he put some of them twice over, he apparently somewhat missed catching the answer; had given her too some information about himself which was not wasted upon her calmer feminine sense. He repeated more than once that he had not expected to meet her, and it was evident that the encounter touched him in a way that would have made preparation advisable. He began abruptly to pass from the impunity of things to their solemnity, and from their being delightful to their being impossible. He was splendidly sunburnt; even his multitudinous beard had been burnished by the fire of Asia. He was dressed in the loose-fitting, heterogeneous garments in which the English traveller in foreign lands is wont to consult his comfort and affirm his nationality; and with his pleasant steady eyes, his bronzed complexion, fresh beneath its seasoning, his manly figure, his minimising manner and his general air of being a gentleman and an explorer, he was such a representative of the British race as need not in any clime have been disavowed by those who have a kindness for it. Isabel noted these things and was glad she had always liked him. He had kept, evidently in spite of shocks, every one of his merits--properties these partaking of the essence of great decent houses, as one might put it; resembling their innermost fixtures and ornaments, not subject to vulgar shifting and removable only by some whole break-up. They talked of the matters naturally in order; her uncle's death, Ralph's state of health, the way she had passed her winter, her visit to Rome, her return to Florence, her plans for the summer, the hotel she was staying at; and then of Lord Warburton's own adventures, movements, intentions, impressions and present domicile. At last there was a silence, and it said so much more than either had said that it scarce needed his final words. "I've written to you several times." "Written to me? I've never had your letters." "I never sent them. I burned them up." "Ah," laughed Isabel, "it was better that you should do that than I!" "I thought you wouldn't care for them," he went on with a simplicity that touched her. "It seemed to me that after all I had no right to trouble you with letters." "I should have been very glad to have news of you. You know how I hoped that--that--" But she stopped; there would be such a flatness in the utterance of her thought. "I know what you're going to say. You hoped we should always remain good friends." This formula, as Lord Warburton uttered it, was certainly flat enough; but then he was interested in making it appear so. She found herself reduced simply to "Please don't talk of all that"; a speech which hardly struck her as improvement on the other. "It's a small consolation to allow me!" her companion exclaimed with force. "I can't pretend to console you," said the girl, who, all still as she sat there, threw herself back with a sort of inward triumph on the answer that had satisfied him so little six months before. He was pleasant, he was powerful, he was gallant; there was no better man than he. But her answer remained. "It's very well you don't try to console me; it wouldn't be in your power," she heard him say through the medium of her strange elation. "I hoped we should meet again, because I had no fear you would attempt to make me feel I had wronged you. But when you do that--the pain's greater than the pleasure." And she got up with a small conscious majesty, looking for her companions. "I don't want to make you feel that; of course I can't say that. I only just want you to know one or two things--in fairness to myself, as it were. I won't return to the subject again. I felt very strongly what I expressed to you last year; I couldn't think of anything else. I tried to forget--energetically, systematically. I tried to take an interest in somebody else. I tell you this because I want you to know I did my duty. I didn't succeed. It was for the same purpose I went abroad--as far away as possible. They say travelling distracts the mind, but it didn't distract mine. I've thought of you perpetually, ever since I last saw you. I'm exactly the same. I love you just as much, and everything I said to you then is just as true. This instant at which I speak to you shows me again exactly how, to my great misfortune, you just insuperably charm me. There--I can't say less. I don't mean, however, to insist; it's only for a moment. I may add that when I came upon you a few minutes since, without the smallest idea of seeing you, I was, upon my honour, in the very act of wishing I knew where you were." He had recovered his self-control, and while he spoke it became complete. He might have been addressing a small committee--making all quietly and clearly a statement of importance; aided by an occasional look at a paper of notes concealed in his hat, which he had not again put on. And the committee, assuredly, would have felt the point proved. "I've often thought of you, Lord Warburton," Isabel answered. "You may be sure I shall always do that." And she added in a tone of which she tried to keep up the kindness and keep down the meaning: "There's no harm in that on either side." They walked along together, and she was prompt to ask about his sisters and request him to let them know she had done so. He made for the moment no further reference to their great question, but dipped again into shallower and safer waters. But he wished to know when she was to leave Rome, and on her mentioning the limit of her stay declared he was glad it was still so distant. "Why do you say that if you yourself are only passing through?" she enquired with some anxiety. "Ah, when I said I was passing through I didn't mean that one would treat Rome as if it were Clapham Junction. To pass through Rome is to stop a week or two." "Say frankly that you mean to stay as long as I do!" His flushed smile, for a little, seemed to sound her. "You won't like that. You're afraid you'll see too much of me." "It doesn't matter what I like. I certainly can't expect you to leave this delightful place on my account. But I confess I'm afraid of you." "Afraid I'll begin again? I promise to be very careful." They had gradually stopped and they stood a moment face to face. "Poor Lord Warburton!" she said with a compassion intended to be good for both of them. "Poor Lord Warburton indeed! But I'll be careful." "You may be unhappy, but you shall not make ME so. That I can't allow." "If I believed I could make you unhappy I think I should try it." At this she walked in advance and he also proceeded. "I'll never say a word to displease you." "Very good. If you do, our friendship's at an end." "Perhaps some day--after a while--you'll give me leave." "Give you leave to make me unhappy?" He hesitated. "To tell you again--" But he checked himself. "I'll keep it down. I'll keep it down always." Ralph Touchett had been joined in his visit to the excavation by Miss Stackpole and her attendant, and these three now emerged from among the mounds of earth and stone collected round the aperture and came into sight of Isabel and her companion. Poor Ralph hailed his friend with joy qualified by wonder, and Henrietta exclaimed in a high voice "Gracious, there's that lord!" Ralph and his English neighbour greeted with the austerity with which, after long separations, English neighbours greet, and Miss Stackpole rested her large intellectual gaze upon the sunburnt traveller. But she soon established her relation to the crisis. "I don't suppose you remember me, sir." "Indeed I do remember you," said Lord Warburton. "I asked you to come and see me, and you never came." "I don't go everywhere I'm asked," Miss Stackpole answered coldly. "Ah well, I won't ask you again," laughed the master of Lockleigh. "If you do I'll go; so be sure!" Lord Warburton, for all his hilarity, seemed sure enough. Mr. Bantling had stood by without claiming a recognition, but he now took occasion to nod to his lordship, who answered him with a friendly "Oh, you here, Bantling?" and a hand-shake. "Well," said Henrietta, "I didn't know you knew him!" "I guess you don't know every one I know," Mr. Bantling rejoined facetiously. "I thought that when an Englishman knew a lord he always told you." "Ah, I'm afraid Bantling was ashamed of me," Lord Warburton laughed again. Isabel took pleasure in that note; she gave a small sigh of relief as they kept their course homeward. The next day was Sunday; she spent her morning over two long letters--one to her sister Lily, the other to Madame Merle; but in neither of these epistles did she mention the fact that a rejected suitor had threatened her with another appeal. Of a Sunday afternoon all good Romans (and the best Romans are often the northern barbarians) follow the custom of going to vespers at Saint Peter's; and it had been agreed among our friends that they would drive together to the great church. After lunch, an hour before the carriage came, Lord Warburton presented himself at the Hotel de Paris and paid a visit to the two ladies, Ralph Touchett and Mr. Bantling having gone out together. The visitor seemed to have wished to give Isabel a proof of his intention to keep the promise made her the evening before; he was both discreet and frank--not even dumbly importunate or remotely intense. He thus left her to judge what a mere good friend he could be. He talked about his travels, about Persia, about Turkey, and when Miss Stackpole asked him whether it would "pay" for her to visit those countries assured her they offered a great field to female enterprise. Isabel did him justice, but she wondered what his purpose was and what he expected to gain even by proving the superior strain of his sincerity. If he expected to melt her by showing what a good fellow he was, he might spare himself the trouble. She knew the superior strain of everything about him, and nothing he could now do was required to light the view. Moreover his being in Rome at all affected her as a complication of the wrong sort--she liked so complications of the right. Nevertheless, when, on bringing his call to a close, he said he too should be at Saint Peter's and should look out for her and her friends, she was obliged to reply that he must follow his convenience. In the church, as she strolled over its tesselated acres, he was the first person she encountered. She had not been one of the superior tourists who are "disappointed" in Saint Peter's and find it smaller than its fame; the first time she passed beneath the huge leathern curtain that strains and bangs at the entrance, the first time she found herself beneath the far-arching dome and saw the light drizzle down through the air thickened with incense and with the reflections of marble and gilt, of mosaic and bronze, her conception of greatness rose and dizzily rose. After this it never lacked space to soar. She gazed and wondered like a child or a peasant, she paid her silent tribute to the seated sublime. Lord Warburton walked beside her and talked of Saint Sophia of Constantinople; she feared for instance that he would end by calling attention to his exemplary conduct. The service had not yet begun, but at Saint Peter's there is much to observe, and as there is something almost profane in the vastness of the place, which seems meant as much for physical as for spiritual exercise, the different figures and groups, the mingled worshippers and spectators, may follow their various intentions without conflict or scandal. In that splendid immensity individual indiscretion carries but a short distance. Isabel and her companions, however, were guilty of none; for though Henrietta was obliged in candour to declare that Michael Angelo's dome suffered by comparison with that of the Capitol at Washington, she addressed her protest chiefly to Mr. Bantling's ear and reserved it in its more accentuated form for the columns of the Interviewer. Isabel made the circuit of the church with his lordship, and as they drew near the choir on the left of the entrance the voices of the Pope's singers were borne to them over the heads of the large number of persons clustered outside the doors. They paused a while on the skirts of this crowd, composed in equal measure of Roman cockneys and inquisitive strangers, and while they stood there the sacred concert went forward. Ralph, with Henrietta and Mr. Bantling, was apparently within, where Isabel, looking beyond the dense group in front of her, saw the afternoon light, silvered by clouds of incense that seemed to mingle with the splendid chant, slope through the embossed recesses of high windows. After a while the singing stopped and then Lord Warburton seemed disposed to move off with her. Isabel could only accompany him; whereupon she found herself confronted with Gilbert Osmond, who appeared to have been standing at a short distance behind her. He now approached with all the forms--he appeared to have multiplied them on this occasion to suit the place. "So you decided to come?" she said as she put out her hand. "Yes, I came last night and called this afternoon at your hotel. They told me you had come here, and I looked about for you." "The others are inside," she decided to say. "I didn't come for the others," he promptly returned. She looked away; Lord Warburton was watching them; perhaps he had heard this. Suddenly she remembered it to be just what he had said to her the morning he came to Gardencourt to ask her to marry him. Mr. Osmond's words had brought the colour to her cheek, and this reminiscence had not the effect of dispelling it. She repaired any betrayal by mentioning to each companion the name of the other, and fortunately at this moment Mr. Bantling emerged from the choir, cleaving the crowd with British valour and followed by Miss Stackpole and Ralph Touchett. I say fortunately, but this is perhaps a superficial view of the matter; since on perceiving the gentleman from Florence Ralph Touchett appeared to take the case as not committing him to joy. He didn't hang back, however, from civility, and presently observed to Isabel, with due benevolence, that she would soon have all her friends about her. Miss Stackpole had met Mr. Osmond in Florence, but she had already found occasion to say to Isabel that she liked him no better than her other admirers--than Mr. Touchett and Lord Warburton, and even than little Mr. Rosier in Paris. "I don't know what it's in you," she had been pleased to remark, "but for a nice girl you do attract the most unnatural people. Mr. Goodwood's the only one I've any respect for, and he's just the one you don't appreciate." "What's your opinion of Saint Peter's?" Mr. Osmond was meanwhile enquiring of our young lady. "It's very large and very bright," she contented herself with replying. "It's too large; it makes one feel like an atom." "Isn't that the right way to feel in the greatest of human temples?" she asked with rather a liking for her phrase. "I suppose it's the right way to feel everywhere, when one IS nobody. But I like it in a church as little as anywhere else." "You ought indeed to be a Pope!" Isabel exclaimed, remembering something he had referred to in Florence. "Ah, I should have enjoyed that!" said Gilbert Osmond. Lord Warburton meanwhile had joined Ralph Touchett, and the two strolled away together. "Who's the fellow speaking to Miss Archer?" his lordship demanded. "His name's Gilbert Osmond--he lives in Florence," Ralph said. "What is he besides?" "Nothing at all. Oh yes, he's an American; but one forgets that--he's so little of one." "Has he known Miss Archer long?" "Three or four weeks." "Does she like him?" "She's trying to find out." "And will she?" "Find out--?" Ralph asked. "Will she like him?" "Do you mean will she accept him?" "Yes," said Lord Warburton after an instant; "I suppose that's what I horribly mean." "Perhaps not if one does nothing to prevent it," Ralph replied. His lordship stared a moment, but apprehended. "Then we must be perfectly quiet?" "As quiet as the grave. And only on the chance!" Ralph added. "The chance she may?" "The chance she may not?" Lord Warburton took this at first in silence, but he spoke again. "Is he awfully clever?" "Awfully," said Ralph. His companion thought. "And what else?" "What more do you want?" Ralph groaned. "Do you mean what more does SHE?" Ralph took him by the arm to turn him: they had to rejoin the others. "She wants nothing that WE can give her." "Ah well, if she won't have You--!" said his lordship handsomely as they went.

Isabel, Ralph, Henrietta, and Mr. Bantling go to Rome, which delights Isabel. She loves the city's rich sense of history. Henrietta is not that impressed with Rome, thinking that every Roman characteristic is inferior to similar ones in America. This is typical hilarious Henrietta - in fact, everything newer is modeled on the old, not vice versa. Ralph goes to look at an excavation site, and Isabel is glad to be alone for a little bit. However, she's not alone for long - shockingly , Lord Warburton shows up. They're both surprised. So are we - where the heck did he come from? They chat somewhat uncomfortably, catching up on recent happenings. Lord Warburton confesses that he has written Isabel several letters, but hasn't sent any of them. Lord Warburton declares that he still loves Isabel, despite his efforts to move on and love someone else. Isabel quietly delights in this news, since, as she says, "there is no better man than he" , but she's still glad that she turned him down. Lord Warburton will be staying in Rome for a couple more weeks, just as Isabel will. Lord Warburton promises that he will control his feelings for her, although it is obviously tough for him. Ralph, Henrietta, and Mr. Bantling return and are surprised to find Lord Warburton with Isabel. Henrietta is shocked that Mr. Bantling and Lord Warburton already know each other. She seems to think that she knows everything about her travel companion. Ralph and Mr. Bantling go out the next day. Lord Warburton visits the two ladies in the hotel. He seems to want to prove that he and Isabel can be friends. Isabel still believes that Lord Warburton is the best kind of man, superior in every way... and, yet, she still has no romantic feelings for him. On Sunday, the group goes to Saint Peter's church, where they meet again with Lord Warburton. Once more, Henrietta ridiculously compares the architecture with American standards. Isabel is with Lord Warburton when she becomes aware of Gilbert Osmond standing behind her . Osmond makes it clear that he is there only to see Isabel. Lord Warburton sees the two of them talking. Isabel introduces Osmond and Lord Warburton to each other. Can you say "awkward?" Lord Warburton asks Ralph about Osmond. Ralph says that they must not try to prevent Isabel and Osmond's union, if they want any hope of keeping them apart. Ralph thinks that Isabel will go against their wishes in order to prove her freedom. Ralph tells Lord Warburton that neither of them can give Isabel what she wants, implying that, despite all his insistence to the contrary, he is in fact in love with his cousin.

summary

On the morrow, in the evening, Lord Warburton went again to see his friends at their hotel, and at this establishment he learned that they had gone to the opera. He drove to the opera with the idea of paying them a visit in their box after the easy Italian fashion; and when he had obtained his admittance--it was one of the secondary theatres--looked about the large, bare, ill-lighted house. An act had just terminated and he was at liberty to pursue his quest. After scanning two or three tiers of boxes he perceived in one of the largest of these receptacles a lady whom he easily recognised. Miss Archer was seated facing the stage and partly screened by the curtain of the box; and beside her, leaning back in his chair, was Mr. Gilbert Osmond. They appeared to have the place to themselves, and Warburton supposed their companions had taken advantage of the recess to enjoy the relative coolness of the lobby. He stood a while with his eyes on the interesting pair; he asked himself if he should go up and interrupt the harmony. At last he judged that Isabel had seen him, and this accident determined him. There should be no marked holding off. He took his way to the upper regions and on the staircase met Ralph Touchett slowly descending, his hat at the inclination of ennui and his hands where they usually were. "I saw you below a moment since and was going down to you. I feel lonely and want company," was Ralph's greeting. "You've some that's very good which you've yet deserted." "Do you mean my cousin? Oh, she has a visitor and doesn't want me. Then Miss Stackpole and Bantling have gone out to a cafe to eat an ice--Miss Stackpole delights in an ice. I didn't think they wanted me either. The opera's very bad; the women look like laundresses and sing like peacocks. I feel very low." "You had better go home," Lord Warburton said without affectation. "And leave my young lady in this sad place? Ah no, I must watch over her." "She seems to have plenty of friends." "Yes, that's why I must watch," said Ralph with the same large mock-melancholy. "If she doesn't want you it's probable she doesn't want me." "No, you're different. Go to the box and stay there while I walk about." Lord Warburton went to the box, where Isabel's welcome was as to a friend so honourably old that he vaguely asked himself what queer temporal province she was annexing. He exchanged greetings with Mr. Osmond, to whom he had been introduced the day before and who, after he came in, sat blandly apart and silent, as if repudiating competence in the subjects of allusion now probable. It struck her second visitor that Miss Archer had, in operatic conditions, a radiance, even a slight exaltation; as she was, however, at all times a keenly-glancing, quickly-moving, completely animated young woman, he may have been mistaken on this point. Her talk with him moreover pointed to presence of mind; it expressed a kindness so ingenious and deliberate as to indicate that she was in undisturbed possession of her faculties. Poor Lord Warburton had moments of bewilderment. She had discouraged him, formally, as much as a woman could; what business had she then with such arts and such felicities, above all with such tones of reparation--preparation? Her voice had tricks of sweetness, but why play them on HIM? The others came back; the bare, familiar, trivial opera began again. The box was large, and there was room for him to remain if he would sit a little behind and in the dark. He did so for half an hour, while Mr. Osmond remained in front, leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, just behind Isabel. Lord Warburton heard nothing, and from his gloomy corner saw nothing but the clear profile of this young lady defined against the dim illumination of the house. When there was another interval no one moved. Mr. Osmond talked to Isabel, and Lord Warburton kept his corner. He did so but for a short time, however; after which he got up and bade good-night to the ladies. Isabel said nothing to detain him, but it didn't prevent his being puzzled again. Why should she mark so one of his values--quite the wrong one--when she would have nothing to do with another, which was quite the right? He was angry with himself for being puzzled, and then angry for being angry. Verdi's music did little to comfort him, and he left the theatre and walked homeward, without knowing his way, through the tortuous, tragic streets of Rome, where heavier sorrows than his had been carried under the stars. "What's the character of that gentleman?" Osmond asked of Isabel after he had retired. "Irreproachable--don't you see it?" "He owns about half England; that's his character," Henrietta remarked. "That's what they call a free country!" "Ah, he's a great proprietor? Happy man!" said Gilbert Osmond. "Do you call that happiness--the ownership of wretched human beings?" cried Miss Stackpole. "He owns his tenants and has thousands of them. It's pleasant to own something, but inanimate objects are enough for me. I don't insist on flesh and blood and minds and consciences." "It seems to me you own a human being or two," Mr. Bantling suggested jocosely. "I wonder if Warburton orders his tenants about as you do me." "Lord Warburton's a great radical," Isabel said. "He has very advanced opinions." "He has very advanced stone walls. His park's enclosed by a gigantic iron fence, some thirty miles round," Henrietta announced for the information of Mr. Osmond. "I should like him to converse with a few of our Boston radicals." "Don't they approve of iron fences?" asked Mr. Bantling. "Only to shut up wicked conservatives. I always feel as if I were talking to YOU over something with a neat top-finish of broken glass." "Do you know him well, this unreformed reformer?" Osmond went on, questioning Isabel. "Well enough for all the use I have for him." "And how much of a use is that?" "Well, I like to like him." "'Liking to like'--why, it makes a passion!" said Osmond. "No"--she considered--"keep that for liking to DISlike." "Do you wish to provoke me then," Osmond laughed, "to a passion for HIM?" She said nothing for a moment, but then met the light question with a disproportionate gravity. "No, Mr. Osmond; I don't think I should ever dare to provoke you. Lord Warburton, at any rate," she more easily added, "is a very nice man." "Of great ability?" her friend enquired. "Of excellent ability, and as good as he looks." "As good as he's good-looking do you mean? He's very good-looking. How detestably fortunate!--to be a great English magnate, to be clever and handsome into the bargain, and, by way of finishing off, to enjoy your high favour! That's a man I could envy." Isabel considered him with interest. "You seem to me to be always envying some one. Yesterday it was the Pope; to-day it's poor Lord Warburton." "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." "You'd like to be the Pope?" said Isabel. "I should love it--but I should have gone in for it earlier. But why"--Osmond reverted--"do you speak of your friend as poor?" "Women--when they are very, very good sometimes pity men after they've hurt them; that's their great way of showing kindness," said Ralph, joining in the conversation for the first time and with a cynicism so transparently ingenious as to be virtually innocent. "Pray, have I hurt Lord Warburton?" Isabel asked, raising her eyebrows as if the idea were perfectly fresh. "It serves him right if you have," said Henrietta while the curtain rose for the ballet. Isabel saw no more of her attributive victim for the next twenty-four hours, but on the second day after the visit to the opera she encountered him in the gallery of the Capitol, where he stood before the lion of the collection, the statue of the Dying Gladiator. She had come in with her companions, among whom, on this occasion again, Gilbert Osmond had his place, and the party, having ascended the staircase, entered the first and finest of the rooms. Lord Warburton addressed her alertly enough, but said in a moment that he was leaving the gallery. "And I'm leaving Rome," he added. "I must bid you goodbye." Isabel, inconsequently enough, was now sorry to hear it. This was perhaps because she had ceased to be afraid of his renewing his suit; she was thinking of something else. She was on the point of naming her regret, but she checked herself and simply wished him a happy journey; which made him look at her rather unlightedly. "I'm afraid you'll think me very 'volatile.' I told you the other day I wanted so much to stop." "Oh no; you could easily change your mind." "That's what I have done." "Bon voyage then." "You're in a great hurry to get rid of me," said his lordship quite dismally. "Not in the least. But I hate partings." "You don't care what I do," he went on pitifully. Isabel looked at him a moment. "Ah," she said, "you're not keeping your promise!" He coloured like a boy of fifteen. "If I'm not, then it's because I can't; and that's why I'm going." "Good-bye then." "Good-bye." He lingered still, however. "When shall I see you again?" Isabel hesitated, but soon, as if she had had a happy inspiration: "Some day after you're married." "That will never be. It will be after you are." "That will do as well," she smiled. "Yes, quite as well. Good-bye." They shook hands, and he left her alone in the glorious room, among the shining antique marbles. She sat down in the centre of the circle of these presences, regarding them vaguely, resting her eyes on their beautiful blank faces; listening, as it were, to their eternal silence. It is impossible, in Rome at least, to look long at a great company of Greek sculptures without feeling the effect of their noble quietude; which, as with a high door closed for the ceremony, slowly drops on the spirit the large white mantle of peace. I say in Rome especially, because the Roman air is an exquisite medium for such impressions. The golden sunshine mingles with them, the deep stillness of the past, so vivid yet, though it is nothing but a void full of names, seems to throw a solemn spell upon them. The blinds were partly closed in the windows of the Capitol, and a clear, warm shadow rested on the figures and made them more mildly human. Isabel sat there a long time, under the charm of their motionless grace, wondering to what, of their experience, their absent eyes were open, and how, to our ears, their alien lips would sound. The dark red walls of the room threw them into relief; the polished marble floor reflected their beauty. She had seen them all before, but her enjoyment repeated itself, and it was all the greater because she was glad again, for the time, to be alone. At last, however, her attention lapsed, drawn off by a deeper tide of life. An occasional tourist came in, stopped and stared a moment at the Dying Gladiator, and then passed out of the other door, creaking over the smooth pavement. At the end of half an hour Gilbert Osmond reappeared, apparently in advance of his companions. He strolled toward her slowly, with his hands behind him and his usual enquiring, yet not quite appealing smile. "I'm surprised to find you alone, I thought you had company. "So I have--the best." And she glanced at the Antinous and the Faun. "Do you call them better company than an English peer?" "Ah, my English peer left me some time ago." She got up, speaking with intention a little dryly. Mr. Osmond noted her dryness, which contributed for him to the interest of his question. "I'm afraid that what I heard the other evening is true: you're rather cruel to that nobleman." Isabel looked a moment at the vanquished Gladiator. "It's not true. I'm scrupulously kind." "That's exactly what I mean!" Gilbert Osmond returned, and with such happy hilarity that his joke needs to be explained. We know that he was fond of originals, of rarities, of the superior and the exquisite; and now that he had seen Lord Warburton, whom he thought a very fine example of his race and order, he perceived a new attraction in the idea of taking to himself a young lady who had qualified herself to figure in his collection of choice objects by declining so noble a hand. 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.

Lord Warburton goes to visits his friends the next night. When he learns that they're at the theatre, he follows them there. An act has just ended, and Lord Warburton finds Isabel alone with Osmond in a secluded opera box. Lord Warburton runs into Ralph, who's feeling lonely since Henrietta's paired off with Mr. Bantling, and Isabel obviously doesn't need him. Lord Warburton goes to hang out with Isabel and Osmond while Ralph takes a walk. Lord Warburton notices how charming and radiant Isabel is under "operatic conditions" , and is puzzled as to why she should use her feminine charms on him. Lord Warburton stays in the corner of the box, watching Isabel. He eventually gets up to leave before the opera is over. Osmond asks Isabel about Lord Warburton, and she reveals the fact that Warburton is a man of high status. Isabel says that she thinks well of Lord Warburton. Osmond says that he could be envious of Lord Warburton. Isabel jokes with Osmond: yesterday he wanted to be the Pope, and today he wants to be Lord Warburton. Two days later, Isabel runs into Lord Warburton again at an art gallery. She is there with her friends, including Osmond, admiring the statue of the Dying Gladiator. Lord Warburton tells Isabel that he is not only leaving the museum, but leaving Rome as well. Isabel has a moment of wanting to stop him, but then wishes him a good journey. Lord Warburton says that he cannot stick to his promise of concealing his interest in her, and so he is leaving Rome. Isabel says that the next time she will see Lord Warburton will be after he's married. Warburton corrects her, saying that that will never happen, and that she will marry first. Isabel is alone after Lord Warburton leaves, accompanied by art. Osmond creeps up behind her, and is glad to find her alone. Osmond accuses Isabel of being cruel to Lord Warburton, and Isabel says that she bends over backward to be kind. Osmond rejoices in Isabel's behavior toward Lord Warburton, because he knows that Warburton is a man superior to himself. If Isabel is strong enough to turn down Lord Warburton, then Osmond figures that she is the woman for him. He wants to add her to his collection of beautiful and precious things. We've said it once, and we'll say it again - Osmond is so creepy. Ugh.

summary

Ralph Touchett, in talk with his excellent friend, had rather markedly qualified, as we know, his recognition of Gilbert Osmond's personal merits; but he might really have felt himself illiberal in the light of that gentleman's conduct during the rest of the visit to Rome. Osmond spent a portion of each day with Isabel and her companions, and ended by affecting them as the easiest of men to live with. Who wouldn't have seen that he could command, as it were, both tact and gaiety?--which perhaps was exactly why Ralph had made his old-time look of superficial sociability a reproach to him. Even Isabel's invidious kinsman was obliged to admit that he was just now a delightful associate. His good humour was imperturbable, his knowledge of the right fact, his production of the right word, as convenient as the friendly flicker of a match for your cigarette. Clearly he was amused--as amused as a man could be who was so little ever surprised, and that made him almost applausive. It was not that his spirits were visibly high--he would never, in the concert of pleasure, touch the big drum by so much as a knuckle: he had a mortal dislike to the high, ragged note, to what he called random ravings. He thought Miss Archer sometimes of too precipitate a readiness. It was pity she had that fault, because if she had not had it she would really have had none; she would have been as smooth to his general need of her as handled ivory to the palm. If he was not personally loud, however, he was deep, and during these closing days of the Roman May he knew a complacency that matched with slow irregular walks under the pines of the Villa Borghese, among the small sweet meadow-flowers and the mossy marbles. He was pleased with everything; he had never before been pleased with so many things at once. Old impressions, old enjoyments, renewed themselves; one evening, going home to his room at the inn, he wrote down a little sonnet to which he prefixed the title of "Rome Revisited." A day or two later he showed this piece of correct and ingenious verse to Isabel, explaining to her that it was an Italian fashion to commemorate the occasions of life by a tribute to the muse. He took his pleasures in general singly; he was too often--he would have admitted that--too sorely aware of something wrong, something ugly; the fertilising dew of a conceivable felicity too seldom descended on his spirit. But at present he was happy--happier than he had perhaps ever been in his life, and the feeling had a large foundation. This was simply the sense of success--the most agreeable emotion of the human heart. Osmond had never had too much of it; in this respect he had the irritation of satiety, as he knew perfectly well and often reminded himself. "Ah no, I've not been spoiled; certainly I've not been spoiled," he used inwardly to repeat. "If I do succeed before I die I shall thoroughly have earned it." He was too apt to reason as if "earning" this boon consisted above all of covertly aching for it and might be confined to that exercise. Absolutely void of it, also, his career had not been; he might indeed have suggested to a spectator here and there that he was resting on vague laurels. But his triumphs were, some of them, now too old; others had been too easy. The present one had been less arduous than might have been expected, but had been easy--that is had been rapid--only because he had made an altogether exceptional effort, a greater effort than he had believed it in him to make. The desire to have something or other to show for his "parts"--to show somehow or other--had been the dream of his youth; but as the years went on the conditions attached to any marked proof of rarity had affected him more and more as gross and detestable; like the swallowing of mugs of beer to advertise what one could "stand." If an anonymous drawing on a museum wall had been conscious and watchful it might have known this peculiar pleasure of being at last and all of a sudden identified--as from the hand of a great master--by the so high and so unnoticed fact of style. His "style" was what the girl had discovered with a little help; and now, beside herself enjoying it, she should publish it to the world without his having any of the trouble. She should do the thing FOR him, and he would not have waited in vain. Shortly before the time fixed in advance for her departure this young lady received from Mrs. Touchett a telegram running as follows: "Leave Florence 4th June for Bellaggio, and take you if you have not other views. But can't wait if you dawdle in Rome." The dawdling in Rome was very pleasant, but Isabel had different views, and she let her aunt know she would immediately join her. She told Gilbert Osmond that she had done so, and he replied that, spending many of his summers as well as his winters in Italy, he himself would loiter a little longer in the cool shadow of Saint Peter's. He would not return to Florence for ten days more, and in that time she would have started for Bellaggio. It might be months in this case before he should see her again. This exchange took place in the large decorated sitting-room occupied by our friends at the hotel; it was late in the evening, and Ralph Touchett was to take his cousin back to Florence on the morrow. Osmond had found the girl alone; Miss Stackpole had contracted a friendship with a delightful American family on the fourth floor and had mounted the interminable staircase to pay them a visit. Henrietta contracted friendships, in travelling, with great freedom, and had formed in railway-carriages several that were among her most valued ties. Ralph was making arrangements for the morrow's journey, and Isabel sat alone in a wilderness of yellow upholstery. The chairs and sofas were orange; the walls and windows were draped in purple and gilt. The mirrors, the pictures had great flamboyant frames; the ceiling was deeply vaulted and painted over with naked muses and cherubs. For Osmond the place was ugly to distress; the false colours, the sham splendour were like vulgar, bragging, lying talk. Isabel had taken in hand a volume of Ampere, presented, on their arrival in Rome, by Ralph; but though she held it in her lap with her finger vaguely kept in the place she was not impatient to pursue her study. A lamp covered with a drooping veil of pink tissue-paper burned on the table beside her and diffused a strange pale rosiness over the scene. "You say you'll come back; but who knows?" Gilbert Osmond said. "I think you're much more likely to start on your voyage round the world. You're under no obligation to come back; you can do exactly what you choose; you can roam through space." "Well, Italy's a part of space," Isabel answered. "I can take it on the way." "On the way round the world? No, don't do that. Don't put us in a parenthesis--give us a chapter to ourselves. I don't want to see you on your travels. I'd rather see you when they're over. I should like to see you when you're tired and satiated," Osmond added in a moment. "I shall prefer you in that state." Isabel, with her eyes bent, fingered the pages of M. Ampere. "You turn things into ridicule without seeming to do it, though not, I think, without intending it. You've no respect for my travels--you think them ridiculous." "Where do you find that?" She went on in the same tone, fretting the edge of her book with the paper-knife. "You see my ignorance, my blunders, the way I wander about as if the world belonged to me, simply because--because it has been put into my power to do so. You don't think a woman ought to do that. You think it bold and ungraceful." "I think it beautiful," said Osmond. "You know my opinions--I've treated you to enough of them. Don't you remember my telling you that one ought to make one's life a work of art? You looked rather shocked at first; but then I told you that it was exactly what you seemed to me to be trying to do with your own." She looked up from her book. "What you despise most in the world is bad, is stupid art." "Possibly. But yours seem to me very clear and very good." "If I were to go to Japan next winter you would laugh at me," she went on. Osmond gave a smile--a keen one, but not a laugh, for the tone of their conversation was not jocose. Isabel had in fact her solemnity; he had seen it before. "You have one!" "That's exactly what I say. You think such an idea absurd." "I would give my little finger to go to Japan; it's one of the countries I want most to see. Can't you believe that, with my taste for old lacquer?" "I haven't a taste for old lacquer to excuse me," said Isabel. "You've a better excuse--the means of going. You're quite wrong in your theory that I laugh at you. I don't know what has put it into your head." "It wouldn't be remarkable if you did think it ridiculous that I should have the means to travel when you've not; for you know everything and I know nothing." "The more reason why you should travel and learn," smiled Osmond. "Besides," he added as if it were a point to be made, "I don't know everything." Isabel was not struck with the oddity of his saying this gravely; she was thinking that the pleasantest incident of her life--so it pleased her to qualify these too few days in Rome, which she might musingly have likened to the figure of some small princess of one of the ages of dress overmuffled in a mantle of state and dragging a train that it took pages or historians to hold up--that this felicity was coming to an end. That most of the interest of the time had been owing to Mr. Osmond was a reflexion she was not just now at pains to make; she had already done the point abundant justice. But she said to herself that if there were a danger they should never meet again, perhaps after all it would be as well. Happy things don't repeat themselves, and her adventure wore already the changed, the seaward face of some romantic island from which, after feasting on purple grapes, she was putting off while the breeze rose. She might come back to Italy and find him different--this strange man who pleased her just as he was; and it would be better not to come than run the risk of that. But if she was not to come the greater the pity that the chapter was closed; she felt for a moment a pang that touched the source of tears. The sensation kept her silent, and Gilbert Osmond was silent too; he was looking at her. "Go everywhere," he said at last, in a low, kind voice; "do everything; get everything out of life. Be happy,--be triumphant." "What do you mean by being triumphant?" "Well, doing what you like." "To triumph, then, it seems to me, is to fail! Doing all the vain things one likes is often very tiresome." "Exactly," said Osmond with his quiet quickness. "As I intimated just now, you'll be tired some day." He paused a moment and then he went on: "I don't know whether I had better not wait till then for something I want to say to you." "Ah, I can't advise you without knowing what it is. But I'm horrid when I'm tired," Isabel added with due inconsequence. "I don't believe that. You're angry, sometimes--that I can believe, though I've never seen it. But I'm sure you're never 'cross.'" "Not even when I lose my temper?" "You don't lose it--you find it, and that must be beautiful." Osmond spoke with a noble earnestness. "They must be great moments to see." "If I could only find it now!" Isabel nervously cried. "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!" "Tired of hearing it from others?" He sat there raising his eyes to her. "No, you may heed it now or never, as you please. But after all I must say it now." She had turned away, but in the movement she had stopped herself and dropped her gaze upon him. The two remained a while in this situation, exchanging a long look--the large, conscious look of the critical hours of life. Then he got up and came near her, deeply respectful, as if he were afraid he had been too familiar. "I'm absolutely in love with you." He had repeated the announcement in a tone of almost impersonal discretion, like a man who expected very little from it but who spoke for his own needed relief. The tears came into her eyes: this time they obeyed the sharpness of the pang that suggested to her somehow the slipping of a fine bolt--backward, forward, she couldn't have said which. The words he had uttered made him, as he stood there, beautiful and generous, invested him as with the golden air of early autumn; but, morally speaking, she retreated before them--facing him still--as she had retreated in the other cases before a like encounter. "Oh don't say that, please," she answered with an intensity that expressed the dread of having, in this case too, to choose and decide. What made her dread great was precisely the force which, as it would seem, ought to have banished all dread--the sense of something within herself, deep down, that she supposed to be inspired and trustful passion. It was there like a large sum stored in a bank--which there was a terror in having to begin to spend. If she touched it, it would all come out. "I haven't the idea that it will matter much to you," said Osmond. "I've too little to offer you. What I have--it's enough for me; but it's not enough for you. I've neither fortune, nor fame, nor extrinsic advantages of any kind. So I offer nothing. I only tell you because I think it can't offend you, and some day or other it may give you pleasure. It gives me pleasure, I assure you," he went on, standing there before her, considerately inclined to her, turning his hat, which he had taken up, slowly round with a movement which had all the decent tremor of awkwardness and none of its oddity, and presenting to her his firm, refined, slightly ravaged face. "It gives me no pain, because it's perfectly simple. For me you'll always be the most important woman in the world." Isabel looked at herself in this character--looked intently, thinking she filled it with a certain grace. But what she said was not an expression of any such complacency. "You don't offend me; but you ought to remember that, without being offended, one may be incommoded, troubled." "Incommoded," she heard herself saying that, and it struck her as a ridiculous word. But it was what stupidly came to her. "I remember perfectly. Of course you're surprised and startled. But if it's nothing but that, it will pass away. And it will perhaps leave something that I may not be ashamed of." "I don't know what it may leave. You see at all events that I'm not overwhelmed," said Isabel with rather a pale smile. "I'm not too troubled to think. And I think that I'm glad I leave Rome to-morrow." "Of course I don't agree with you there." "I don't at all KNOW you," she added abruptly; and then she coloured as she heard herself saying what she had said almost a year before to Lord Warburton. "If you were not going away you'd know me better." "I shall do that some other time." "I hope so. I'm very easy to know." "No, no," she emphatically answered--"there you're not sincere. You're not easy to know; no one could be less so." "Well," he laughed, "I said that because I know myself. It may be a boast, but I do." "Very likely; but you're very wise." "So are you, Miss Archer!" Osmond exclaimed. "I don't feel so just now. Still, I'm wise enough to think you had better go. Good-night." "God bless you!" said Gilbert Osmond, taking the hand which she failed to surrender. After which he added: "If we meet again you'll find me as you leave me. If we don't I shall be so all the same." "Thank you very much. Good-bye." There was something quietly firm about Isabel's visitor; he might go of his own movement, but wouldn't be dismissed. "There's one thing more. I haven't asked anything of you--not even a thought in the future; you must do me that justice. But there's a little service I should like to ask. I shall not return home for several days; Rome's delightful, and it's a good place for a man in my state of mind. Oh, I know you're sorry to leave it; but you're right to do what your aunt wishes." "She doesn't even wish it!" Isabel broke out strangely. Osmond was apparently on the point of saying something that would match these words, but he changed his mind and rejoined simply: "Ah well, it's proper you should go with her, very proper. Do everything that's proper; I go in for that. Excuse my being so patronising. You say you don't know me, but when you do you'll discover what a worship I have for propriety." "You're not conventional?" Isabel gravely asked. "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." She stood there with lowered eyes. "What service did you speak of just now?" "Go and see my little daughter before you leave Florence. She's alone at the villa; I decided not to send her to my sister, who hasn't at all my ideas. Tell her she must love her poor father very much," said Gilbert Osmond gently. "It will be a great pleasure to me to go," Isabel answered. "I'll tell her what you say. Once more good-bye." On this he took a rapid, respectful leave. When he had gone she stood a moment looking about her and seated herself slowly and with an air of deliberation. She sat there till her companions came back, with folded hands, gazing at the ugly carpet. Her agitation--for it had not diminished--was very still, very deep. What had happened was something that for a week past her imagination had been going forward to meet; but here, when it came, she stopped--that sublime principle somehow broke down. The working of this young lady's spirit was strange, and I can only give it to you as I see it, not hoping to make it seem altogether natural. Her imagination, as I say, now hung back: there was a last vague space it couldn't cross--a dusky, uncertain tract which looked ambiguous and even slightly treacherous, like a moorland seen in the winter twilight. But she was to cross it yet.

Osmond has been strangely pleasant the whole time while he's in Isabel's company. He is so pleased to be around Isabel that he writes a sonnet called "Rome Revisited," and shares it with her. Osmond has always wanted someone like Isabel to bring out the best in him, and show it to the world - apparently, his selfishness just knows no bounds. Mrs. Touchett sends a telegram asking Isabel to return to Florence and go to Bellaggio with her, but only if Isabel is willing to leave Rome. Isabel replies that she would very much like to go with her aunt. When Osmond finds out, he lets Isabel know that they probably won't see each other again for months. While Henrietta is making friends with Americans in the hotel and Ralph is making arrangements for the trip to Florence, Isabel sits alone in the colorfully decorated room. Osmond calls on her. Isabel assumes that he must think her ridiculous for wanting to travel the world. Osmond denies such thoughts, saying that it's right for her to use her means to travel. Osmond says he'll be waiting for her when she's done traveling and tired. The implication is that she'll be vulnerable then - and he'll be ready to strike. Isabel is glad to go. She figures that, if this happy time with Osmond is the last time she'll spend with him, it's best to part well. Osmond professes his love for Isabel. This is familiar territory... or, at least, it should be. However, something's different this time. Isabel feels something in her switch, and tears spring to her eyes. Could this be love? Osmond confesses that he has little to offer Isabel, but figures there's no harm in letting her know of his love. Isabel tells him the same thing she told Lord Warburton: that she barely knows him. Osmond says that that could easily be changed. Isabel calls his bluff, saying that he is not easy to figure out at all. Isabel asks him to go. Osmond tells Isabel that no matter what she does, he will still love her. Before Osmond leaves, he asks Isabel to promise to visit Pansy before she leaves Florence. Isabel agrees. Isabel sits alone with her thoughts until the others return. The narrator writes that Isabel's imagination has shifted, and that there is some new, mysterious obstacle in its way.

summary

She returned on the morrow to Florence, under her cousin's escort, and Ralph Touchett, though usually restive under railway discipline, thought very well of the successive hours passed in the train that hurried his companion away from the city now distinguished by Gilbert Osmond's preference--hours that were to form the first stage in a larger scheme of travel. Miss Stackpole had remained behind; she was planning a little trip to Naples, to be carried out with Mr. Bantling's aid. Isabel was to have three days in Florence before the 4th of June, the date of Mrs. Touchett's departure, and she determined to devote the last of these to her promise to call on Pansy Osmond. Her plan, however, seemed for a moment likely to modify itself in deference to an idea of Madame Merle's. This lady was still at Casa Touchett; but she too was on the point of leaving Florence, her next station being an ancient castle in the mountains of Tuscany, the residence of a noble family of that country, whose acquaintance (she had known them, as she said, "forever") seemed to Isabel, in the light of certain photographs of their immense crenellated dwelling which her friend was able to show her, a precious privilege. She mentioned to this fortunate woman that Mr. Osmond had asked her to take a look at his daughter, but didn't mention that he had also made her a declaration of love. "Ah, comme cela se trouve!" Madame Merle exclaimed. "I myself have been thinking it would be a kindness to pay the child a little visit before I go off." "We can go together then," Isabel reasonably said: "reasonably" because the proposal was not uttered in the spirit of enthusiasm. She had prefigured her small pilgrimage as made in solitude; she should like it better so. She was nevertheless prepared to sacrifice this mystic sentiment to her great consideration for her friend. That personage finely meditated. "After all, why should we both go; having, each of us, so much to do during these last hours?" "Very good; I can easily go alone." "I don't know about your going alone--to the house of a handsome bachelor. He has been married--but so long ago!" Isabel stared. "When Mr. Osmond's away what does it matter?" "They don't know he's away, you see." "They? Whom do you mean?" "Every one. But perhaps it doesn't signify." "If you were going why shouldn't I?" Isabel asked. "Because I'm an old frump and you're a beautiful young woman." "Granting all that, you've not promised." "How much you think of your promises!" said the elder woman in mild mockery. "I think a great deal of my promises. Does that surprise you?" "You're right," Madame Merle audibly reflected. "I really think you wish to be kind to the child." "I wish very much to be kind to her." "Go and see her then; no one will be the wiser. And tell her I'd have come if you hadn't. Or rather," Madame Merle added, "DON'T tell her. She won't care." As Isabel drove, in the publicity of an open vehicle, along the winding way which led to Mr. Osmond's hill-top, she wondered what her friend had meant by no one's being the wiser. Once in a while, at large intervals, this lady, whose voyaging discretion, as a general thing, was rather of the open sea than of the risky channel, dropped a remark of ambiguous quality, struck a note that sounded false. What cared Isabel Archer for the vulgar judgements of obscure people? and did Madame Merle suppose that she was capable of doing a thing at all if it had to be sneakingly done? Of course not: she must have meant something else--something which in the press of the hours that preceded her departure she had not had time to explain. Isabel would return to this some day; there were sorts of things as to which she liked to be clear. She heard Pansy strumming at the piano in another place as she herself was ushered into Mr. Osmond's drawing-room; the little girl was "practising," and Isabel was pleased to think she performed this duty with rigour. She immediately came in, smoothing down her frock, and did the honours of her father's house with a wide-eyed earnestness of courtesy. Isabel sat there half an hour, and Pansy rose to the occasion as the small, winged fairy in the pantomime soars by the aid of the dissimulated wire--not chattering, but conversing, and showing the same respectful interest in Isabel's affairs that Isabel was so good as to take in hers. Isabel wondered at her; she had never had so directly presented to her nose the white flower of cultivated sweetness. How well the child had been taught, said our admiring young woman; how prettily she had been directed and fashioned; and yet how simple, how natural, how innocent she had been kept! Isabel was fond, ever, of the question of character and quality, of sounding, as who should say, the deep personal mystery, and it had pleased her, up to this time, to be in doubt as to whether this tender slip were not really all-knowing. Was the extremity of her candour but the perfection of self-consciousness? Was it put on to please her father's visitor, or was it the direct expression of an unspotted nature? The hour that Isabel spent in Mr. Osmond's beautiful empty, dusky rooms--the windows had been half-darkened, to keep out the heat, and here and there, through an easy crevice, the splendid summer day peeped in, lighting a gleam of faded colour or tarnished gilt in the rich gloom--her interview with the daughter of the house, I say, effectually settled this question. Pansy was really a blank page, a pure white surface, successfully kept so; she had neither art, nor guile, nor temper, nor talent--only two or three small exquisite instincts: for knowing a friend, for avoiding a mistake, for taking care of an old toy or a new frock. Yet to be so tender was to be touching withal, and she could be felt as an easy victim of fate. She would have no will, no power to resist, no sense of her own importance; she would easily be mystified, easily crushed: her force would be all in knowing when and where to cling. She moved about the place with her visitor, who had asked leave to walk through the other rooms again, where Pansy gave her judgement on several works of art. She spoke of her prospects, her occupations, her father's intentions; she was not egotistical, but felt the propriety of supplying the information so distinguished a guest would naturally expect. "Please tell me," she said, "did papa, in Rome, go to see Madame Catherine? He told me he would if he had time. Perhaps he had not time. Papa likes a great deal of time. He wished to speak about my education; it isn't finished yet, you know. I don't know what they can do with me more; but it appears it's far from finished. Papa told me one day he thought he would finish it himself; for the last year or two, at the convent, the masters that teach the tall girls are so very dear. Papa's not rich, and I should be very sorry if he were to pay much money for me, because I don't think I'm worth it. I don't learn quickly enough, and I have no memory. For what I'm told, yes--especially when it's pleasant; but not for what I learn in a book. There was a young girl who was my best friend, and they took her away from the convent, when she was fourteen, to make--how do you say it in English?--to make a dot. You don't say it in English? I hope it isn't wrong; I only mean they wished to keep the money to marry her. I don't know whether it is for that that papa wishes to keep the money--to marry me. It costs so much to marry!" Pansy went on with a sigh; "I think papa might make that economy. At any rate I'm too young to think about it yet, and I don't care for any gentleman; I mean for any but him. If he were not my papa I should like to marry him; 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. That's not a great compliment, for there are not many people. It was very kind of you to come to-day--so far from your house; for I'm really as yet only a child. Oh, yes, I've only the occupations of a child. When did YOU give them up, the occupations of a child? I should like to know how old you are, but I don't know whether it's right to ask. At the convent they told us that we must never ask the age. I don't like to do anything that's not expected; it looks as if one had not been properly taught. I myself--I should never like to be taken by surprise. Papa left directions for everything. I go to bed very early. When the sun goes off that side I go into the garden. Papa left strict orders that I was not to get scorched. I always enjoy the view; the mountains are so graceful. In Rome, from the convent, we saw nothing but roofs and bell-towers. I practise three hours. I don't play very well. You play yourself? I wish very much you'd play something for me; papa has the idea that I should hear good music. Madame Merle has played for me several times; that's what I like best about Madame Merle; she has great facility. I shall never have facility. And I've no voice--just a small sound like the squeak of a slate-pencil making flourishes." Isabel gratified this respectful wish, drew off her gloves and sat down to the piano, while Pansy, standing beside her, watched her white hands move quickly over the keys. When she stopped she kissed the child good-bye, held her close, looked at her long. "Be very good," she said; "give pleasure to your father." "I think that's what I live for," Pansy answered. "He has not much pleasure; he's rather a sad man." Isabel listened to this assertion with an interest which she felt it almost a torment to be obliged to conceal. It was her pride that obliged her, and a certain sense of decency; there were still other things in her head which she felt a strong impulse, instantly checked, to say to Pansy about her father; there were things it would have given her pleasure to hear the child, to make the child, say. But she no sooner became conscious of these things than her imagination was hushed with horror at the idea of taking advantage of the little girl--it was of this she would have accused herself--and of exhaling into that air where he might still have a subtle sense for it any breath of her charmed state. She had come--she had come; but she had stayed only an hour. She rose quickly from the music-stool; even then, however, she lingered a moment, still holding her small companion, drawing the child's sweet slimness closer and looking down at her almost in envy. She was obliged to confess it to herself--she would have taken a passionate pleasure in talking of Gilbert Osmond to this innocent, diminutive creature who was so near him. But she said no other word; she only kissed Pansy once again. They went together through the vestibule, to the door that opened on the court; and there her young hostess stopped, looking rather wistfully beyond. "I may go no further. I've promised papa not to pass this door." "You're right to obey him; he'll never ask you anything unreasonable." "I shall always obey him. But when will you come again?" "Not for a long time, I'm afraid." "As soon as you can, I hope. I'm only a little girl," said Pansy, "but I shall always expect you." And the small figure stood in the high, dark doorway, watching Isabel cross the clear, grey court and disappear into the brightness beyond the big portone, which gave a wider dazzle as it opened.

Isabel leaves Rome with Ralph to return to Florence. Henrietta stays in Rome to go on to Naples with the amiable and ever-game Mr. Bantling. In the couple of days before June 4th , Isabel decides to pay a visit to Pansy. Madame Merle has been at Mrs. Touchett's in Florence all the while. Isabel tells Madame Merle that she promised Osmond to visit Pansy. Madame Merle says that she'd been planning on visiting Pansy as well. Isabel would rather visit Pansy alone, but suggests that the two ladies can go together. Madame Merle bows out, and says that they can just visit Pansy separately. When Isabel suggests that she'll go alone, Madame Merle thinks it's scandalous that a beautiful young woman should make a trip to Osmond's house alone. Imagine what society will think. Isabel insists that she doesn't care what others think because her visit is perfectly innocent, and, besides, she made a promise. We all know Isabel - as she stated in the beginning of the novel, she always wants to choose whether or not to obey society.... Isabel doesn't like the way that Madame Merle says something about others not finding out about her visit. She is somewhat troubled by her friend. Isabel goes to Osmond's house to find Pansy practicing piano. Isabel contemplates how well Pansy was brought up, and also how sheltered she has managed to remain. Pansy is a simple creature - simple to a fault. She and Isabel talk about her father, and how much she wants to please him. She would like to go back to the convent, and is afraid of getting married soon. Pansy says that she lives to please her father, whom she calls a sad man. She says that she will always obey him. Isabel is really tempted to ask Pansy stuff about her father, but she figures this would be taking advantage of the innocent child . After only an hour's visit, Isabel turns to leave. Pansy asks her to return, saying that she will always expect her.

summary

Isabel came back to Florence, but only after several months; an interval sufficiently replete with incident. It is not, however, during this interval that we are closely concerned with her; our attention is engaged again on a certain day in the late spring-time, shortly after her return to Palazzo Crescentini and a year from the date of the incidents just narrated. She was alone on this occasion, in one of the smaller of the numerous rooms devoted by Mrs. Touchett to social uses, and there was that in her expression and attitude which would have suggested that she was expecting a visitor. The tall window was open, and though its green shutters were partly drawn the bright air of the garden had come in through a broad interstice and filled the room with warmth and perfume. Our young woman stood near it for some time, her hands clasped behind her; she gazed abroad with the vagueness of unrest. Too troubled for attention she moved in a vain circle. Yet it could not be in her thought to catch a glimpse of her visitor before he should pass into the house, since the entrance to the palace was not through the garden, in which stillness and privacy always reigned. She wished rather to forestall his arrival by a process of conjecture, and to judge by the expression of her face this attempt gave her plenty to do. Grave she found herself, and positively more weighted, as by the experience of the lapse of the year she had spent in seeing the world. She had ranged, she would have said, through space and surveyed much of mankind, and was therefore now, in her own eyes, a very different person from the frivolous young woman from Albany who had begun to take the measure of Europe on the lawn at Gardencourt a couple of years before. She flattered herself she had harvested wisdom and learned a great deal more of life than this light-minded creature had even suspected. If her thoughts just now had inclined themselves to retrospect, instead of fluttering their wings nervously about the present, they would have evoked a multitude of interesting pictures. These pictures would have been both landscapes and figure-pieces; the latter, however, would have been the more numerous. With several of the images that might have been projected on such a field we are already acquainted. There would be for instance the conciliatory Lily, our heroine's sister and Edmund Ludlow's wife, who had come out from New York to spend five months with her relative. She had left her husband behind her, but had brought her children, to whom Isabel now played with equal munificence and tenderness the part of maiden-aunt. Mr. Ludlow, toward the last, had been able to snatch a few weeks from his forensic triumphs and, crossing the ocean with extreme rapidity, had spent a month with the two ladies in Paris before taking his wife home. The little Ludlows had not yet, even from the American point of view, reached the proper tourist-age; so that while her sister was with her Isabel had confined her movements to a narrow circle. Lily and the babies had joined her in Switzerland in the month of July, and they had spent a summer of fine weather in an Alpine valley where the flowers were thick in the meadows and the shade of great chestnuts made a resting-place for such upward wanderings as might be undertaken by ladies and children on warm afternoons. They had afterwards reached the French capital, which was worshipped, and with costly ceremonies, by Lily, but thought of as noisily vacant by Isabel, who in these days made use of her memory of Rome as she might have done, in a hot and crowded room, of a phial of something pungent hidden in her handkerchief. Mrs. Ludlow sacrificed, as I say, to Paris, yet had doubts and wonderments not allayed at that altar; and after her husband had joined her found further chagrin in his failure to throw himself into these speculations. They all had Isabel for subject; but Edmund Ludlow, as he had always done before, declined to be surprised, or distressed, or mystified, or elated, at anything his sister-in-law might have done or have failed to do. Mrs. Ludlow's mental motions were sufficiently various. At one moment she thought it would be so natural for that young woman to come home and take a house in New York--the Rossiters', for instance, which had an elegant conservatory and was just round the corner from her own; at another she couldn't conceal her surprise at the girl's not marrying some member of one of the great aristocracies. On the whole, as I have said, she had fallen from high communion with the probabilities. She had taken more satisfaction in Isabel's accession of fortune than if the money had been left to herself; it had seemed to her to offer just the proper setting for her sister's slightly meagre, but scarce the less eminent figure. Isabel had developed less, however, than Lily had thought likely--development, to Lily's understanding, being somehow mysteriously connected with morning-calls and evening-parties. Intellectually, doubtless, she had made immense strides; but she appeared to have achieved few of those social conquests of which Mrs. Ludlow had expected to admire the trophies. Lily's conception of such achievements was extremely vague; but this was exactly what she had expected of Isabel--to give it form and body. Isabel could have done as well as she had done in New York; and Mrs. Ludlow appealed to her husband to know whether there was any privilege she enjoyed in Europe which the society of that city might not offer her. We know ourselves that Isabel had made conquests--whether inferior or not to those she might have effected in her native land it would be a delicate matter to decide; and it is not altogether with a feeling of complacency that I again mention that she had not rendered these honourable victories public. She had not told her sister the history of Lord Warburton, nor had she given her a hint of Mr. Osmond's state of mind; and she had had no better reason for her silence than that she didn't wish to speak. It was more romantic to say nothing, and, drinking deep, in secret, of romance, she was as little disposed to ask poor Lily's advice as she would have been to close that rare volume forever. But Lily knew nothing of these discriminations, and could only pronounce her sister's career a strange anti-climax--an impression confirmed by the fact that Isabel's silence about Mr. Osmond, for instance, was in direct proportion to the frequency with which he occupied her thoughts. As this happened very often it sometimes appeared to Mrs. Ludlow that she had lost her courage. So uncanny a result of so exhilarating an incident as inheriting a fortune was of course perplexing to the cheerful Lily; it added to her general sense that Isabel was not at all like other people. Our young lady's courage, however, might have been taken as reaching its height after her relations had gone home. She could imagine braver things than spending the winter in Paris--Paris had sides by which it so resembled New York, Paris was like smart, neat prose--and her close correspondence with Madame Merle did much to stimulate such flights. She had never had a keener sense of freedom, of the absolute boldness and wantonness of liberty, than when she turned away from the platform at the Euston Station on one of the last days of November, after the departure of the train that was to convey poor Lily, her husband and her children to their ship at Liverpool. It had been good for her to regale; she was very conscious of that; she was very observant, as we know, of what was good for her, and her effort was constantly to find something that was good enough. To profit by the present advantage till the latest moment she had made the journey from Paris with the unenvied travellers. She would have accompanied them to Liverpool as well, only Edmund Ludlow had asked her, as a favour, not to do so; it made Lily so fidgety and she asked such impossible questions. Isabel watched the train move away; she kissed her hand to the elder of her small nephews, a demonstrative child who leaned dangerously far out of the window of the carriage and made separation an occasion of violent hilarity, and then she walked back into the foggy London street. The world lay before her--she could do whatever she chose. There was a deep thrill in it all, but for the present her choice was tolerably discreet; she chose simply to walk back from Euston Square to her hotel. The early dusk of a November afternoon had already closed in; the street-lamps, in the thick, brown air, looked weak and red; our heroine was unattended and Euston Square was a long way from Piccadilly. But Isabel performed the journey with a positive enjoyment of its dangers and lost her way almost on purpose, in order to get more sensations, so that she was disappointed when an obliging policeman easily set her right again. She was so fond of the spectacle of human life that she enjoyed even the aspect of gathering dusk in the London streets--the moving crowds, the hurrying cabs, the lighted shops, the flaring stalls, the dark, shining dampness of everything. That evening, at her hotel, she wrote to Madame Merle that she should start in a day or two for Rome. She made her way down to Rome without touching at Florence--having gone first to Venice and then proceeded southward by Ancona. She accomplished this journey without other assistance than that of her servant, for her natural protectors were not now on the ground. Ralph Touchett was spending the winter at Corfu, and Miss Stackpole, in the September previous, had been recalled to America by a telegram from the Interviewer. This journal offered its brilliant correspondent a fresher field for her genius than the mouldering cities of Europe, and Henrietta was cheered on her way by a promise from Mr. Bantling that he would soon come over to see her. Isabel wrote to Mrs. Touchett to apologise for not presenting herself just yet in Florence, and her aunt replied characteristically enough. Apologies, Mrs. Touchett intimated, were of no more use to her than bubbles, and she herself never dealt in such articles. One either did the thing or one didn't, and what one "would" have done belonged to the sphere of the irrelevant, like the idea of a future life or of the origin of things. Her letter was frank, but (a rare case with Mrs. Touchett) not so frank as it pretended. She easily forgave her niece for not stopping at Florence, because she took it for a sign that Gilbert Osmond was less in question there than formerly. She watched of course to see if he would now find a pretext for going to Rome, and derived some comfort from learning that he had not been guilty of an absence. Isabel, on her side, had not been a fortnight in Rome before she proposed to Madame Merle that they should make a little pilgrimage to the East. Madame Merle remarked that her friend was restless, but she added that she herself had always been consumed with the desire to visit Athens and Constantinople. The two ladies accordingly embarked on this expedition, and spent three months in Greece, in Turkey, in Egypt. Isabel found much to interest her in these countries, though Madame Merle continued to remark that even among the most classic sites, the scenes most calculated to suggest repose and reflexion, a certain incoherence prevailed in her. Isabel travelled rapidly and recklessly; she was like a thirsty person draining cup after cup. Madame Merle meanwhile, as lady-in-waiting to a princess circulating incognita, panted a little in her rear. It was on Isabel's invitation she had come, and she imparted all due dignity to the girl's uncountenanced state. She played her part with the tact that might have been expected of her, effacing herself and accepting the position of a companion whose expenses were profusely paid. The situation, however, had no hardships, and people who met this reserved though striking pair on their travels would not have been able to tell you which was patroness and which client. To say that Madame Merle improved on acquaintance states meagrely the impression she made on her friend, who had found her from the first so ample and so easy. At the end of an intimacy of three months Isabel felt she knew her better; her character had revealed itself, and the admirable woman had also at last redeemed her promise of relating her history from her own point of view--a consummation the more desirable as Isabel had already heard it related from the point of view of others. This history was so sad a one (in so far as it concerned the late M. Merle, a positive adventurer, she might say, though originally so plausible, who had taken advantage, years before, of her youth and of an inexperience in which doubtless those who knew her only now would find it difficult to believe); it abounded so in startling and lamentable incidents that her companion wondered a person so eprouvee could have kept so much of her freshness, her interest in life. Into this freshness of Madame Merle's she obtained a considerable insight; she seemed to see it as professional, as slightly mechanical, carried about in its case like the fiddle of the virtuoso, or blanketed and bridled like the "favourite" of the jockey. She liked her as much as ever, but there was a corner of the curtain that never was lifted; it was as if she had remained after all something of a public performer, condemned to emerge only in character and in costume. She had once said that she came from a distance, that she belonged to the "old, old" world, and Isabel never lost the impression that she was the product of a different moral or social clime from her own, that she had grown up under other stars. She believed then that at bottom she had a different morality. Of course the morality of civilised persons has always much in common; but our young woman had a sense in her of values gone wrong or, as they said at the shops, marked down. She considered, with the presumption of youth, that a morality differing from her own must be inferior to it; and this conviction was an aid to detecting an occasional flash of cruelty, an occasional lapse from candour, in the conversation of a person who had raised delicate kindness to an art and whose pride was too high for the narrow ways of deception. Her conception of human motives might, in certain lights, have been acquired at the court of some kingdom in decadence, and there were several in her list of which our heroine had not even heard. She had not heard of everything, that was very plain; and there were evidently things in the world of which it was not advantageous to hear. She had once or twice had a positive scare; since it so affected her to have to exclaim, of her friend, "Heaven forgive her, she doesn't understand me!" Absurd as it may seem this discovery operated as a shock, left her with a vague dismay in which there was even an element of foreboding. The dismay of course subsided, in the light of some sudden proof of Madame Merle's remarkable intelligence; but it stood for a high-water-mark in the ebb and flow of confidence. Madame Merle had once declared her belief that when a friendship ceases to grow it immediately begins to decline--there being no point of equilibrium between liking more and liking less. A stationary affection, in other words, was impossible--it must move one way or the other. However that might be, the girl had in these days a thousand uses for her sense of the romantic, which was more active than it had ever been. I do not allude to the impulse it received as she gazed at the Pyramids in the course of an excursion from Cairo, or as she stood among the broken columns of the Acropolis and fixed her eyes upon the point designated to her as the Strait of Salamis; deep and memorable as these emotions had remained. She came back by the last of March from Egypt and Greece and made another stay in Rome. A few days after her arrival Gilbert Osmond descended from Florence and remained three weeks, during which the fact of her being with his old friend Madame Merle, in whose house she had gone to lodge, made it virtually inevitable that he should see her every day. When the last of April came she wrote to Mrs. Touchett that she should now rejoice to accept an invitation given long before, and went to pay a visit at Palazzo Crescentini, Madame Merle on this occasion remaining in Rome. She found her aunt alone; her cousin was still at Corfu. Ralph, however, was expected in Florence from day to day, and Isabel, who had not seen him for upwards of a year, was prepared to give him the most affectionate welcome.

Time flies - a year has passed since we last saw Isabel. The narrator fills us in on some of Isabel's activities and adventures. Isabel's sister, Lily, and her children came to visit Isabel in Paris and London. Lily thinks Isabel has changed, but not in the way that she had expected. Lily's husband, Edmund, comes to England to bring his family back to America. Isabel is oddly glad to see them go. Isabel gallivants off to Greece, Turkey, and Egypt with Madame Merle for three months - of course, Isabel foots the bill. Madame Merle? Make that Madame Mooch. Isabel has gotten to know Madame Merle even better. She is still fond of her, though she sees that there is something still hidden in the older woman's nature. We learn a little more about Madame Merle's history, as Isabel has learned a little more. Madame Merle's late husband took advantage of her youth and inexperience . Isabel is impressed that Madame Merle still retains a zest for life. Isabel thinks that she and Madame Merle have different kinds of moral standards. She sees that they are different. Isabel stays at Madame Merle's in Rome. Osmond visits her often, though we read nothing specific about his visits. Isabel writes to Mrs. Touchett to let her know that she plans to return; Madame Merle will stay in Rome. Isabel arrives at Palazzo Crescentini, her aunt's house, and Ralph is expected to join them any day now. They have not seen each other for a year, and she can't wait for their reunion.

summary

It was not of him, nevertheless, that she was thinking while she stood at the window near which we found her a while ago, and it was not of any of the matters I have rapidly sketched. She was not turned to the past, but to the immediate, impending hour. She had reason to expect a scene, and she was not fond of scenes. She was not asking herself what she should say to her visitor; this question had already been answered. What he would say to her--that was the interesting issue. It could be nothing in the least soothing--she had warrant for this, and the conviction doubtless showed in the cloud on her brow. For the rest, however, all clearness reigned in her; she had put away her mourning and she walked in no small shimmering splendour. She only, felt older--ever so much, and as if she were "worth more" for it, like some curious piece in an antiquary's collection. She was not at any rate left indefinitely to her apprehensions, for a servant at last stood before her with a card on his tray. "Let the gentleman come in," she said, and continued to gaze out of the window after the footman had retired. It was only when she had heard the door close behind the person who presently entered that she looked round. Caspar Goodwood stood there--stood and received a moment, from head to foot, the bright, dry gaze with which she rather withheld than offered a greeting. Whether his sense of maturity had kept pace with Isabel's we shall perhaps presently ascertain; let me say meanwhile that to her critical glance he showed nothing of the injury of time. Straight, strong and hard, there was nothing in his appearance that spoke positively either of youth or of age; if he had neither innocence nor weakness, so he had no practical philosophy. His jaw showed the same voluntary cast as in earlier days; but a crisis like the present had in it of course something grim. He had the air of a man who had travelled hard; he said nothing at first, as if he had been out of breath. This gave Isabel time to make a reflexion: "Poor fellow, what great things he's capable of, and what a pity he should waste so dreadfully his splendid force! What a pity too that one can't satisfy everybody!" It gave her time to do more to say at the end of a minute: "I can't tell you how I hoped you wouldn't come!" "I've no doubt of that." And he looked about him for a seat. Not only had he come, but he meant to settle. "You must be very tired," said Isabel, seating herself, and generously, as she thought, to give him his opportunity. "No, I'm not at all tired. Did you ever know me to be tired?" "Never; I wish I had! When did you arrive?" "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." "That's in keeping--you must have felt as if you were coming to bury me!" And she forced a smile of encouragement to an easy view of their situation. She had reasoned the matter well out, making it perfectly clear that she broke no faith and falsified no contract; but for all this she was afraid of her visitor. She was ashamed of her fear; but she was devoutly thankful there was nothing else to be ashamed of. He looked at her with his stiff insistence, an insistence in which there was such a want of tact; especially when the dull dark beam in his eye rested on her as a physical weight. "No, I didn't feel that; I couldn't think of you as dead. I wish I could!" he candidly declared. "I thank you immensely." "I'd rather think of you as dead than as married to another man." "That's very selfish of you!" she returned with the ardour of a real conviction. "If you're not happy yourself others have yet a right to be." "Very likely it's selfish; but I don't in the least mind your saying so. I don't mind anything you can say now--I don't feel it. The cruellest things you could think of would be mere pin-pricks. After what you've done I shall never feel anything--I mean anything but that. That I shall feel all my life." Mr. Goodwood made these detached assertions with dry deliberateness, in his hard, slow American tone, which flung no atmospheric colour over propositions intrinsically crude. The tone made Isabel angry rather than touched her; but her anger perhaps was fortunate, inasmuch as it gave her a further reason for controlling herself. It was under the pressure of this control that she became, after a little, irrelevant. "When did you leave New York?" He threw up his head as if calculating. "Seventeen days ago." "You must have travelled fast in spite of your slow trains." "I came as fast as I could. I'd have come five days ago if I had been able." "It wouldn't have made any difference, Mr. Goodwood," she coldly smiled. "Not to you--no. But to me." "You gain nothing that I see." "That's for me to judge!" "Of course. To me it seems that you only torment yourself." And then, to change the subject, she asked him if he had seen Henrietta Stackpole. He looked as if he had not come from Boston to Florence to talk of Henrietta Stackpole; but he answered, distinctly enough, that this young lady had been with him just before he left America. "She came to see you?" Isabel then demanded. "Yes, she was in Boston, and she called at my office. It was the day I had got your letter." "Did you tell her?" Isabel asked with a certain anxiety. "Oh no," said Caspar Goodwood simply; "I didn't want to do that. She'll hear it quick enough; she hears everything." "I shall write to her, and then she'll write to me and scold me," Isabel declared, trying to smile again. Caspar, however, remained sternly grave. "I guess she'll come right out," he said. "On purpose to scold me?" "I don't know. She seemed to think she had not seen Europe thoroughly." "I'm glad you tell me that," Isabel said. "I must prepare for her." Mr. Goodwood fixed his eyes for a moment on the floor; then at last, raising them, "Does she know Mr. Osmond?" he enquired. "A little. And she doesn't like him. But of course I don't marry to please Henrietta," she added. It would have been better for poor Caspar if she had tried a little more to gratify Miss Stackpole; but he didn't say so; he only asked, presently, when her marriage would take place. To which she made answer that she didn't know yet. "I can only say it will be soon. I've told no one but yourself and one other person--an old friend of Mr. Osmond's." "Is it a marriage your friends won't like?" he demanded. "I really haven't an idea. As I say, I don't marry for my friends." He went on, making no exclamation, no comment, only asking questions, doing it quite without delicacy. "Who and what then is Mr. Gilbert Osmond?" "Who and what? Nobody and nothing but a very good and very honourable man. He's not in business," said Isabel. "He's not rich; he's not known for anything in particular." She disliked Mr. Goodwood's questions, but she said to herself that she owed it to him to satisfy him as far as possible. The satisfaction poor Caspar exhibited was, however, small; he sat very upright, gazing at her. "Where does he come from? Where does he belong?" She had never been so little pleased with the way he said "belawng." "He comes from nowhere. He has spent most of his life in Italy." "You said in your letter he was American. Hasn't he a native place?" "Yes, but he has forgotten it. He left it as a small boy." "Has he never gone back?" "Why should he go back?" Isabel asked, flushing all defensively. "He has no profession." "He might have gone back for his pleasure. Doesn't he like the United States?" "He doesn't know them. Then he's very quiet and very simple--he contents himself with Italy." "With Italy and with you," said Mr. Goodwood with gloomy plainness and no appearance of trying to make an epigram. "What has he ever done?" he added abruptly. "That I should marry him? Nothing at all," Isabel replied while her patience helped itself by turning a little to hardness. "If he had done great things would you forgive me any better? Give me up, Mr. Goodwood; I'm marrying a perfect nonentity. Don't try to take an interest in him. You can't." "I can't appreciate him; that's what you mean. And you don't mean in the least that he's a perfect nonentity. You think he's grand, you think he's great, though no one else thinks so." Isabel's colour deepened; she felt this really acute of her companion, and it was certainly a proof of the aid that passion might render perceptions she had never taken for fine. "Why do you always come back to what others think? I can't discuss Mr. Osmond with you." "Of course not," said Caspar reasonably. And he sat there with his air of stiff helplessness, as if not only this were true, but there were nothing else that they might discuss. "You see how little you gain," she accordingly broke out--"how little comfort or satisfaction I can give you." "I didn't expect you to give me much." "I don't understand then why you came." "I came because I wanted to see you once more--even just as you are." "I appreciate that; but if you had waited a while, sooner or later we should have been sure to meet, and our meeting would have been pleasanter for each of us than this." "Waited till after you're married? That's just what I didn't want to do. You'll be different then." "Not very. I shall still be a great friend of yours. You'll see." "That will make it all the worse," said Mr. Goodwood grimly. "Ah, you're unaccommodating! I can't promise to dislike you in order to help you to resign yourself." "I shouldn't care if you did!" Isabel got up with a movement of repressed impatience and walked to the window, where she remained a moment looking out. When she turned round her visitor was still motionless in his place. She came toward him again and stopped, resting her hand on the back of the chair she had just quitted. "Do you mean you came simply to look at me? That's better for you perhaps than for me." "I wished to hear the sound of your voice," he said. "You've heard it, and you see it says nothing very sweet." "It gives me pleasure, all the same." And with this he got up. She had felt pain and displeasure on receiving early that day the news he was in Florence and by her leave would come within an hour to see her. She had been vexed and distressed, though she had sent back word by his messenger that he might come when he would. She had not been better pleased when she saw him; his being there at all was so full of heavy implications. It implied things she could never assent to--rights, reproaches, remonstrance, rebuke, the expectation of making her change her purpose. These things, however, if implied, had not been expressed; and now our young lady, strangely enough, began to resent her visitor's remarkable self-control. There was a dumb misery about him that irritated her; there was a manly staying of his hand that made her heart beat faster. She felt her agitation rising, and she said to herself that she was angry in the way a woman is angry when she has been in the wrong. She was not in the wrong; she had fortunately not that bitterness to swallow; but, all the same, she wished he would denounce her a little. She had wished his visit would be short; it had no purpose, no propriety; yet now that he seemed to be turning away she felt a sudden horror of his leaving her without uttering a word that would give her an opportunity to defend herself more than she had done in writing to him a month before, in a few carefully chosen words, to announce her engagement. If she were not in the wrong, however, why should she desire to defend herself? It was an excess of generosity on Isabel's part to desire that Mr. Goodwood should be angry. And if he had not meanwhile held himself hard it might have made him so to hear the tone in which she suddenly exclaimed, as if she were accusing him of having accused her: "I've not deceived you! I was perfectly free!" "Yes, I know that," said Caspar. "I gave you full warning that I'd do as I chose." "You said you'd probably never marry, and you said it with such a manner that I pretty well believed it." She considered this an instant. "No one can be more surprised than myself at my present intention." "You told me that if I heard you were engaged I was not to believe it," Caspar went on. "I heard it twenty days ago from yourself, but I remembered what you had said. I thought there might be some mistake, and that's partly why I came." "If you wish me to repeat it by word of mouth, that's soon done. There's no mistake whatever." "I saw that as soon as I came into the room." "What good would it do you that I shouldn't marry?" she asked with a certain fierceness. "I should like it better than this." "You're very selfish, as I said before." "I know that. I'm selfish as iron." "Even iron sometimes melts! If you'll be reasonable I'll see you again." "Don't you call me reasonable now?" "I don't know what to say to you," she answered with sudden humility. "I shan't trouble you for a long time," the young man went on. He made a step towards the door, but he stopped. "Another reason why I came was that I wanted to hear what you would say in explanation of your having changed your mind." Her humbleness as suddenly deserted her. "In explanation? Do you think I'm bound to explain?" He gave her one of his long dumb looks. "You were very positive. I did believe it." "So did I. Do you think I could explain if I would?" "No, I suppose not. Well," he added, "I've done what I wished. I've seen you." "How little you make of these terrible journeys," she felt the poverty of her presently replying. "If you're afraid I'm knocked up--in any such way as that--you may be at your ease about it." He turned away, this time in earnest, and no hand-shake, no sign of parting, was exchanged between them. At the door he stopped with his hand on the knob. "I shall leave Florence to-morrow," he said without a quaver. "I'm delighted to hear it!" she answered passionately. Five minutes after he had gone out she burst into tears.

The narrator returns to the present, where Isabel sits awaiting a guest. She is not looking forward to the encounter, although we don't yet know who she's expecting. Caspar Goodwood bursts in on the scene. He wants to know about her engagement - whoa, whoa, whoa! He's not the only curious and mortified one here. What engagement? Caspar says that he'd rather Isabel be dead to him, than know that she's married to someone else. Isabel calls him selfish, but he's beyond caring about that. Apparently, Caspar left the States to come and see Isabel as soon as he received word of her situation. He made it to Florence in only seventeen days, which is pretty darn amazing - we're talking pre-plane era here, people. Isabel isn't sure what he hopes to gain from this meeting. Isabel has not told anyone about her engagement to Gilbert Osmond , except Caspar Goodwood and Madame Merle. Isabel says she isn't getting married for her friends, so she hasn't felt obliged to tell all of them. Isabel says that Osmond is not a man of distinction, so Caspar would not gain anything by learning more about him. She seems to delight in this fact. Isabel wishes that Caspar had waited to visit after her marriage. Caspar says that of course he could not have done that, since she would be different by then. Caspar says that he only wanted to hear the sound of her voice, even if it's not speaking good news. Isabel is upset that Caspar isn't arguing more with her. She wants the opportunity to defend her decision. Caspar reminds Isabel of what she told him years ago: if he heard about her engagement, he should not believe it. And, yet, it's true -- she's engaged. Caspar leaves in a rage, announcing his departure from Florence the next day. Isabel says that she's glad he's leaving, and breaks out in sobs five minutes after his departure - this seems to be the usual effect he has on her. Whew! That was one intense chapter. We have to go take a breather - meet you back here in five.

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Her fit of weeping, however, was soon smothered, and the signs of it had vanished when, an hour later, she broke the news to her aunt. I use this expression because she had been sure Mrs. Touchett would not be pleased; Isabel had only waited to tell her till she had seen Mr. Goodwood. She had an odd impression that it would not be honourable to make the fact public before she should have heard what Mr. Goodwood would say about it. He had said rather less than she expected, and she now had a somewhat angry sense of having lost time. But she would lose no more; she waited till Mrs. Touchett came into the drawing-room before the mid-day breakfast, and then she began. "Aunt Lydia, I've something to tell you." Mrs. Touchett gave a little jump and looked at her almost fiercely. "You needn't tell me; I know what it is." "I don't know how you know." "The same way that I know when the window's open--by feeling a draught. You're going to marry that man." "What man do you mean?" Isabel enquired with great dignity. "Madame Merle's friend--Mr. Osmond." "I don't know why you call him Madame Merle's friend. Is that the principal thing he's known by?" "If he's not her friend he ought to be--after what she has done for him!" cried Mrs. Touchett. "I shouldn't have expected it of her; I'm disappointed." "If you mean that Madame Merle has had anything to do with my engagement you're greatly mistaken," Isabel declared with a sort of ardent coldness. "You mean that your attractions were sufficient, without the gentleman's having had to be lashed up? You're quite right. They're immense, your attractions, and he would never have presumed to think of you if she hadn't put him up to it. He has a very good opinion of himself, but he was not a man to take trouble. Madame Merle took the trouble for him." "He has taken a great deal for himself!" cried Isabel with a voluntary laugh. Mrs. Touchett gave a sharp nod. "I think he must, after all, to have made you like him so much." "I thought he even pleased YOU." "He did, at one time; and that's why I'm angry with him." "Be angry with me, not with him," said the girl. "Oh, I'm always angry with you; that's no satisfaction! Was it for this that you refused Lord Warburton?" "Please don't go back to that. Why shouldn't I like Mr. Osmond, since others have done so?" "Others, at their wildest moments, never wanted to marry him. There's nothing OF him," Mrs. Touchett explained. "Then he can't hurt me," said Isabel. "Do you think you're going to be happy? No one's happy, in such doings, you should know." "I shall set the fashion then. What does one marry for?" "What YOU will marry for, heaven only knows. People usually marry as they go into partnership--to set up a house. But in your partnership you'll bring everything." "Is it that Mr. Osmond isn't rich? Is that what you're talking about?" Isabel asked. "He has no money; he has no name; he has no importance. I value such things and I have the courage to say it; I think they're very precious. Many other people think the same, and they show it. But they give some other reason." Isabel hesitated a little. "I think I value everything that's valuable. I care very much for money, and that's why I wish Mr. Osmond to have a little." "Give it to him then; but marry some one else." "His name's good enough for me," the girl went on. "It's a very pretty name. Have I such a fine one myself?" "All the more reason you should improve on it. There are only a dozen American names. Do you marry him out of charity?" "It was my duty to tell you, Aunt Lydia, but I don't think it's my duty to explain to you. Even if it were I shouldn't be able. So please don't remonstrate; in talking about it you have me at a disadvantage. I can't talk about it." "I don't remonstrate, I simply answer you: I must give some sign of intelligence. I saw it coming, and I said nothing. I never meddle." "You never do, and I'm greatly obliged to you. You've been very considerate." "It was not considerate--it was convenient," said Mrs. Touchett. "But I shall talk to Madame Merle." "I don't see why you keep bringing her in. She has been a very good friend to me." "Possibly; but she has been a poor one to me." "What has she done to you?" "She has deceived me. She had as good as promised me to prevent your engagement." "She couldn't have prevented it." "She can do anything; that's what I've always liked her for. I knew she could play any part; but I understood that she played them one by one. I didn't understand that she would play two at the same time." "I don't know what part she may have played to you," Isabel said; "that's between yourselves. To me she has been honest and kind and devoted." "Devoted, of course; she wished you to marry her candidate. She told me she was watching you only in order to interpose." "She said that to please you," the girl answered; conscious, however, of the inadequacy of the explanation. "To please me by deceiving me? She knows me better. Am I pleased to-day?" "I don't think you're ever much pleased," Isabel was obliged to reply. "If Madame Merle knew you would learn the truth what had she to gain by insincerity?" "She gained time, as you see. While I waited for her to interfere you were marching away, and she was really beating the drum." "That's very well. But by your own admission you saw I was marching, and even if she had given the alarm you wouldn't have tried to stop me." "No, but some one else would." "Whom do you mean?" Isabel asked, looking very hard at her aunt. Mrs. Touchett's little bright eyes, active as they usually were, sustained her gaze rather than returned it. "Would you have listened to Ralph?" "Not if he had abused Mr. Osmond." "Ralph doesn't abuse people; you know that perfectly. He cares very much for you." "I know he does," said Isabel; "and I shall feel the value of it now, for he knows that whatever I do I do with reason." "He never believed you would do this. I told him you were capable of it, and he argued the other way." "He did it for the sake of argument," the girl smiled. "You don't accuse him of having deceived you; why should you accuse Madame Merle?" "He never pretended he'd prevent it." "I'm glad of that!" cried Isabel gaily. "I wish very much," she presently added, "that when he comes you'd tell him first of my engagement." "Of course I'll mention it," said Mrs. Touchett. "I shall say nothing more to you about it, but I give you notice I shall talk to others." "That's as you please. I only meant that it's rather better the announcement should come from you than from me." "I quite agree with you; it's much more proper!" And on this the aunt and the niece went to breakfast, where Mrs. Touchett, as good as her word, made no allusion to Gilbert Osmond. After an interval of silence, however, she asked her companion from whom she had received a visit an hour before. "From an old friend--an American gentleman," Isabel said with a colour in her cheek. "An American gentleman of course. It's only an American gentleman who calls at ten o'clock in the morning." "It was half-past ten; he was in a great hurry; he goes away this evening." "Couldn't he have come yesterday, at the usual time?" "He only arrived last night." "He spends but twenty-four hours in Florence?" Mrs. Touchett cried. "He's an American gentleman truly." "He is indeed," said Isabel, thinking with perverse admiration of what Caspar Goodwood had done for her. Two days afterward Ralph arrived; but though Isabel was sure that Mrs. Touchett had lost no time in imparting to him the great fact, he showed at first no open knowledge of it. Their prompted talk was naturally of his health; Isabel had many questions to ask about Corfu. She had been shocked by his appearance when he came into the room; she had forgotten how ill he looked. In spite of Corfu he looked very ill to-day, and she wondered if he were really worse or if she were simply disaccustomed to living with an invalid. Poor Ralph made no nearer approach to conventional beauty as he advanced in life, and the now apparently complete loss of his health had done little to mitigate the natural oddity of his person. Blighted and battered, but still responsive and still ironic, his face was like a lighted lantern patched with paper and unsteadily held; his thin whisker languished upon a lean cheek; the exorbitant curve of his nose defined itself more sharply. Lean he was altogether, lean and long and loose-jointed; an accidental cohesion of relaxed angles. His brown velvet jacket had become perennial; his hands had fixed themselves in his pockets; he shambled and stumbled and shuffled in a manner that denoted great physical helplessness. It was perhaps this whimsical gait that helped to mark his character more than ever as that of the humorous invalid--the invalid for whom even his own disabilities are part of the general joke. They might well indeed with Ralph have been the chief cause of the want of seriousness marking his view of a world in which the reason for his own continued presence was past finding out. Isabel had grown fond of his ugliness; his awkwardness had become dear to her. They had been sweetened by association; they struck her as the very terms on which it had been given him to be charming. He was so charming that her sense of his being ill had hitherto had a sort of comfort in it; the state of his health had seemed not a limitation, but a kind of intellectual advantage; it absolved him from all professional and official emotions and left him the luxury of being exclusively personal. The personality so resulting was delightful; he had remained proof against the staleness of disease; he had had to consent to be deplorably ill, yet had somehow escaped being formally sick. Such had been the girl's impression of her cousin; and when she had pitied him it was only on reflection. As she reflected a good deal she had allowed him a certain amount of compassion; but she always had a dread of wasting that essence--a precious article, worth more to the giver than to any one else. Now, however, it took no great sensibility to feel that poor Ralph's tenure of life was less elastic than it should be. He was a bright, free, generous spirit, he had all the illumination of wisdom and none of its pedantry, and yet he was distressfully dying. Isabel noted afresh that life was certainly hard for some people, and she felt a delicate glow of shame as she thought how easy it now promised to become for herself. She was prepared to learn that Ralph was not pleased with her engagement; but she was not prepared, in spite of her affection for him, to let this fact spoil the situation. She was not even prepared, or so she thought, to resent his want of sympathy; for it would be his privilege--it would be indeed his natural line--to find fault with any step she might take toward marriage. One's cousin always pretended to hate one's husband; that was traditional, classical; it was a part of one's cousin's always pretending to adore one. Ralph was nothing if not critical; and though she would certainly, other things being equal, have been as glad to marry to please him as to please any one, it would be absurd to regard as important that her choice should square with his views. What were his views after all? He had pretended to believe she had better have married Lord Warburton; but this was only because she had refused that excellent man. If she had accepted him Ralph would certainly have taken another tone; he always took the opposite. You could criticise any marriage; it was the essence of a marriage to be open to criticism. How well she herself, should she only give her mind to it, might criticise this union of her own! She had other employment, however, and Ralph was welcome to relieve her of the care. Isabel was prepared to be most patient and most indulgent. He must have seen that, and this made it the more odd he should say nothing. After three days had elapsed without his speaking our young woman wearied of waiting; dislike it as he would, he might at least go through the form. We, who know more about poor Ralph than his cousin, may easily believe that during the hours that followed his arrival at Palazzo Crescentini he had privately gone through many forms. His mother had literally greeted him with the great news, which had been even more sensibly chilling than Mrs. Touchett's maternal kiss. Ralph was shocked and humiliated; his calculations had been false and the person in the world in whom he was most interested was lost. He drifted about the house like a rudderless vessel in a rocky stream, or sat in the garden of the palace on a great cane chair, his long legs extended, his head thrown back and his hat pulled over his eyes. He felt cold about the heart; he had never liked anything less. What could he do, what could he say? If the girl were irreclaimable could he pretend to like it? To attempt to reclaim her was permissible only if the attempt should succeed. To try to persuade her of anything sordid or sinister in the man to whose deep art she had succumbed would be decently discreet only in the event of her being persuaded. Otherwise he should simply have damned himself. It cost him an equal effort to speak his thought and to dissemble; he could neither assent with sincerity nor protest with hope. Meanwhile he knew--or rather he supposed--that the affianced pair were daily renewing their mutual vows. Osmond at this moment showed himself little at Palazzo Crescentini; but Isabel met him every day elsewhere, as she was free to do after their engagement had been made public. She had taken a carriage by the month, so as not to be indebted to her aunt for the means of pursuing a course of which Mrs. Touchett disapproved, and she drove in the morning to the Cascine. This suburban wilderness, during the early hours, was void of all intruders, and our young lady, joined by her lover in its quietest part, strolled with him a while through the grey Italian shade and listened to the nightingales.

Isabel goes to breakfast and prepares to tell Mrs. Touchett the shocking news. Mrs. Touchett, not one to be shocked, already knows - apparently, with her innate meddling radar, she could just feel it in the air. She disapproves, and blames Madame Merle for betraying her. Isabel doesn't see what Madame Merle has to do with anything . Mrs. Touchett complains that there is no reason to marry Osmond; he has neither name nor fortune. Isabel rather snootily responds that she doesn't need to explain herself, and, even if she wanted to, she wouldn't know how. Yeah, that sounds like love to us. Mrs. Touchett asks Isabel whether Ralph would have changed her mind. Isabel says that Ralph would disagree with anyone she chose to marry. Isabel tells Mrs. Touchett about Caspar visiting and leaving within one day. Two days later, Ralph arrives. Isabel waits for Mrs. Touchett to tell him, and for Ralph to bring up the engagement with her, but he does not. Ralph is hurt and saddened - the person he found the most intriguing has let him down. Ralph hopes to dissuade Isabel from going through with her engagement. Osmond has been meeting up with Isabel outside of Palazzo Crescentini every day. They walk in a quiet park together.

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One morning, on her return from her drive, some half-hour before luncheon, she quitted her vehicle in the court of the palace and, instead of ascending the great staircase, crossed the court, passed beneath another archway and entered the garden. A sweeter spot at this moment could not have been imagined. The stillness of noontide hung over it, and the warm shade, enclosed and still, made bowers like spacious caves. Ralph was sitting there in the clear gloom, at the base of a statue of Terpsichore--a dancing nymph with taper fingers and inflated draperies in the manner of Bernini; the extreme relaxation of his attitude suggested at first to Isabel that he was asleep. Her light footstep on the grass had not roused him, and before turning away she stood for a moment looking at him. During this instant he opened his eyes; upon which she sat down on a rustic chair that matched with his own. Though in her irritation she had accused him of indifference she was not blind to the fact that he had visibly had something to brood over. But she had explained his air of absence partly by the languor of his increased weakness, partly by worries connected with the property inherited from his father--the fruit of eccentric arrangements of which Mrs. Touchett disapproved and which, as she had told Isabel, now encountered opposition from the other partners in the bank. He ought to have gone to England, his mother said, instead of coming to Florence; he had not been there for months, and took no more interest in the bank than in the state of Patagonia. "I'm sorry I waked you," Isabel said; "you look too tired." "I feel too tired. But I was not asleep. I was thinking of you." "Are you tired of that?" "Very much so. It leads to nothing. The road's long and I never arrive." "What do you wish to arrive at?" she put to him, closing her parasol. "At the point of expressing to myself properly what I think of your engagement." "Don't think too much of it," she lightly returned. "Do you mean that it's none of my business?" "Beyond a certain point, yes." "That's the point I want to fix. I had an idea you may have found me wanting in good manners. I've never congratulated you." "Of course I've noticed that. I wondered why you were silent." "There have been a good many reasons. I'll tell you now," Ralph said. He pulled off his hat and laid it on the ground; then he sat looking at her. He leaned back under the protection of Bernini, his head against his marble pedestal, his arms dropped on either side of him, his hands laid upon the rests of his wide chair. He looked awkward, uncomfortable; he hesitated long. Isabel said nothing; when people were embarrassed she was usually sorry for them, but she was determined not to help Ralph to utter a word that should not be to the honour of her high decision. "I think I've hardly got over my surprise," he went on at last. "You were the last person I expected to see caught." "I don't know why you call it caught." "Because you're going to be put into a cage." "If I like my cage, that needn't trouble you," she answered. "That's what I wonder at; that's what I've been thinking of." "If you've been thinking you may imagine how I've thought! I'm satisfied that I'm doing well." "You must have changed immensely. A year ago you valued your liberty beyond everything. You wanted only to see life." "I've seen it," said Isabel. "It doesn't look to me now, I admit, such an inviting expanse." "I don't pretend it is; only I had an idea that you took a genial view of it and wanted to survey the whole field." "I've seen that one can't do anything so general. One must choose a corner and cultivate that." "That's what I think. And one must choose as good a corner as possible. I had no idea, all winter, while I read your delightful letters, that you were choosing. You said nothing about it, and your silence put me off my guard." "It was not a matter I was likely to write to you about. Besides, I knew nothing of the future. It has all come lately. If you had been on your guard, however," Isabel asked, "what would you have done?" "I should have said 'Wait a little longer.'" "Wait for what?" "Well, for a little more light," said Ralph with rather an absurd smile, while his hands found their way into his pockets. "Where should my light have come from? From you?" "I might have struck a spark or two." Isabel had drawn off her gloves; she smoothed them out as they lay upon her knee. The mildness of this movement was accidental, for her expression was not conciliatory. "You're beating about the bush, Ralph. You wish to say you don't like Mr. Osmond, and yet you're afraid." "Willing to wound and yet afraid to strike? I'm willing to wound HIM, yes--but not to wound you. I'm afraid of you, not of him. If you marry him it won't be a fortunate way for me to have spoken." "IF I marry him! Have you had any expectation of dissuading me?" "Of course that seems to you too fatuous." "No," said Isabel after a little; "it seems to me too touching." "That's the same thing. It makes me so ridiculous that you pity me." She stroked out her long gloves again. "I know you've a great affection for me. I can't get rid of that." "For heaven's sake don't try. Keep that well in sight. It will convince you how intensely I want you to do well." "And how little you trust me!" There was a moment's silence; the warm noontide seemed to listen. "I trust you, but I don't trust him," said Ralph. She raised her eyes and gave him a wide, deep look. "You've said it now, and I'm glad you've made it so clear. But you'll suffer by it." "Not if you're just." "I'm very just," said Isabel. "What better proof of it can there be than that I'm not angry with you? I don't know what's the matter with me, but I'm not. I was when you began, but it has passed away. Perhaps I ought to be angry, but Mr. Osmond wouldn't think so. He wants me to know everything; that's what I like him for. You've nothing to gain, I know that. I've never been so nice to you, as a girl, that you should have much reason for wishing me to remain one. You give very good advice; you've often done so. No, I'm very quiet; I've always believed in your wisdom," she went on, boasting of her quietness, yet speaking with a kind of contained exaltation. It was her passionate desire to be just; it touched Ralph to the heart, affected him like a caress from a creature he had injured. He wished to interrupt, to reassure her; for a moment he was absurdly inconsistent; he would have retracted what he had said. But she gave him no chance; she went on, having caught a glimpse, as she thought, of the heroic line and desiring to advance in that direction. "I see you've some special idea; I should like very much to hear it. I'm sure it's disinterested; I feel that. It seems a strange thing to argue about, and of course I ought to tell you definitely that if you expect to dissuade me you may give it up. You'll not move me an inch; it's too late. As you say, I'm caught. Certainly it won't be pleasant for you to remember this, but your pain will be in your own thoughts. I shall never reproach you." "I don't think you ever will," said Ralph. "It's not in the least the sort of marriage I thought you'd make." "What sort of marriage was that, pray?" "Well, I can hardly say. I hadn't exactly a positive view of it, but I had a negative. I didn't think you'd decide for--well, for that type." "What's the matter with Mr. Osmond's type, if it be one? His being so independent, so individual, is what I most see in him," the girl declared. "What do you know against him? You know him scarcely at all." "Yes," Ralph said, "I know him very little, and I confess I haven't facts and items to prove him a villain. But all the same I can't help feeling that you're running a grave risk." "Marriage is always a grave risk, and his risk's as grave as mine." "That's his affair! If he's afraid, let him back out. I wish to God he would." Isabel reclined in her chair, folding her arms and gazing a while at her cousin. "I don't think I understand you," she said at last coldly. "I don't know what you're talking about." "I believed you'd marry a man of more importance." 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!" Ralph blushed as well; his attitude embarrassed him. Physically speaking he proceeded to change it; he straightened himself, then leaned forward, resting a hand on each knee. He fixed his eyes on the ground; he had an air of the most respectful deliberation. "I'll tell you in a moment what I mean," he presently said. He felt agitated, intensely eager; now that he had opened the discussion he wished to discharge his mind. But he wished also to be superlatively gentle. Isabel waited a little--then she went on with majesty. "In everything that makes one care for people Mr. Osmond is pre-eminent. There may be nobler natures, but I've never had the pleasure of meeting one. Mr. Osmond's is the finest I know; he's good enough for me, and interesting enough, and clever enough. I'm far more struck with what he has and what he represents than with what he may lack." "I had treated myself to a charming vision of your future," Ralph observed without answering this; "I had amused myself with planning out a high destiny for you. There was to be nothing of this sort in it. You were not to come down so easily or so soon." "Come down, you say?" "Well, that renders my sense of what has happened to you. You seemed to me to be soaring far up in the blue--to be, sailing in the bright light, over the heads of men. Suddenly some one tosses up a faded rosebud--a missile that should never have reached you--and straight you drop to the ground. It hurts me," said Ralph audaciously, "hurts me as if I had fallen myself!" The look of pain and bewilderment deepened in his companion's face. "I don't understand you in the least," she repeated. "You say you amused yourself with a project for my career--I don't understand that. Don't amuse yourself too much, or I shall think you're doing it at my expense." Ralph shook his head. "I'm not afraid of your not believing that I've had great ideas for you." "What do you mean by my soaring and sailing?" she pursued. "I've never moved on a higher plane than I'm moving on now. There's nothing higher for a girl than to marry a--a person she likes," said poor Isabel, wandering into the didactic. "It's your liking the person we speak of that I venture to criticise, my dear cousin. I should have said that the man for you would have been a more active, larger, freer sort of nature." Ralph hesitated, then added: "I can't get over the sense that Osmond is somehow--well, small." He had uttered the last word with no great assurance; he was afraid she would flash out again. But to his surprise she was quiet; she had the air of considering. "Small?" She made it sound immense. "I think he's narrow, selfish. He takes himself so seriously!" "He has a great respect for himself; I don't blame him for that," said Isabel. "It makes one more sure to respect others." Ralph for a moment felt almost reassured by her reasonable tone. "Yes, but everything is relative; one ought to feel one's relation to things--to others. I don't think Mr. Osmond does that." "I've chiefly to do with his relation to me. In that he's excellent." "He's the incarnation of taste," Ralph went on, thinking hard how he could best express Gilbert Osmond's sinister attributes without putting himself in the wrong by seeming to describe him coarsely. He wished to describe him impersonally, scientifically. "He judges and measures, approves and condemns, altogether by that." "It's a happy thing then that his taste should be exquisite." "It's exquisite, indeed, since it has led him to select you as his bride. But have you ever seen such a taste--a really exquisite one--ruffled?" "I hope it may never be my fortune to fail to gratify my husband's." At these words a sudden passion leaped to Ralph's lips. "Ah, that's wilful, that's unworthy of you! You were not meant to be measured in that way--you were meant for something better than to keep guard over the sensibilities of a sterile dilettante!" Isabel rose quickly and he did the same, so that they stood for a moment looking at each other as if he had flung down a defiance or an insult. But "You go too far," she simply breathed. "I've said what I had on my mind--and I've said it because I love you!" Isabel turned pale: was he too on that tiresome list? She had a sudden wish to strike him off. "Ah then, you're not disinterested!" "I love you, but I love without hope," said Ralph quickly, forcing a smile and feeling that in that last declaration he had expressed more than he intended. Isabel moved away and stood looking into the sunny stillness of the garden; but after a little she turned back to him. "I'm afraid your talk then is the wildness of despair! I don't understand it--but it doesn't matter. I'm not arguing with you; it's impossible I should; I've only tried to listen to you. I'm much obliged to you for attempting to explain," she said gently, as if the anger with which she had just sprung up had already subsided. "It's very good of you to try to warn me, if you're really alarmed; but I won't promise to think of what you've said: I shall forget it as soon as possible. Try and forget it yourself; you've done your duty, and no man can do more. I can't explain to you what I feel, what I believe, and I wouldn't if I could." She paused a moment and then went on with an inconsequence that Ralph observed even in the midst of his eagerness to discover some symptom of concession. "I can't enter into your idea of Mr. Osmond; I can't do it justice, because I see him in quite another way. He's not important--no, he's not important; he's a man to whom importance is supremely indifferent. If that's what you mean when you call him 'small,' then he's as small as you please. I call that large--it's the largest thing I know. I won't pretend to argue with you about a person I'm going to marry," Isabel repeated. "I'm not in the least concerned to defend Mr. Osmond; he's not so weak as to need my defence. I should think it would seem strange even to yourself that I should talk of him so quietly and coldly, as if he were any one else. I wouldn't talk of him at all to any one but you; and you, after what you've said--I may just answer you once for all. Pray, would you wish me to make a mercenary marriage--what they call a marriage of ambition? I've only one ambition--to be free to follow out a good feeling. I had others once, but they've passed away. Do you complain of Mr. Osmond because he's not rich? That's just what I like him for. I've fortunately money enough; I've never felt so thankful for it as to-day. There have been moments when I should like to go and kneel down by your father's grave: he did perhaps a better thing than he knew when he put it into my power to marry a poor man--a man who has borne his poverty with such dignity, with such indifference. Mr. Osmond has never scrambled nor struggled--he has cared for no worldly prize. If that's to be narrow, if that's to be selfish, then it's very well. I'm not frightened by such words, I'm not even displeased; I'm only sorry that you should make a mistake. Others might have done so, but I'm surprised that you should. You might know a gentleman when you see one--you might know a fine mind. Mr. Osmond makes no mistakes! He knows everything, he understands everything, he has the kindest, gentlest, highest spirit. You've got hold of some false idea. It's a pity, but I can't help it; it regards you more than me." Isabel paused a moment, looking at her cousin with an eye illumined by a sentiment which contradicted the careful calmness of her manner--a mingled sentiment, to which the angry pain excited by his words and the wounded pride of having needed to justify a choice of which she felt only the nobleness and purity, equally contributed. Though she paused Ralph said nothing; he saw she had more to say. She was grand, but she was highly solicitous; she was indifferent, but she was all in a passion. "What sort of a person should you have liked me to marry?" she asked suddenly. "You talk about one's soaring and sailing, but if one marries at all one touches the earth. One has human feelings and needs, one has a heart in one's bosom, and one must marry a particular individual. Your mother has never forgiven me for not having come to a better understanding with Lord Warburton, and she's horrified at my contenting myself with a person who has none of his great advantages--no property, no title, no honours, no houses, nor lands, nor position, nor reputation, nor brilliant belongings of any sort. It's the total absence of all these things that pleases me. Mr. Osmond's simply a very lonely, a very cultivated and a very honest man--he's not a prodigious proprietor." Ralph had listened with great attention, as if everything she said merited deep consideration; but in truth he was only half thinking of the things she said, he was for the rest simply accommodating himself to the weight of his total impression--the impression of her ardent good faith. She was wrong, but she believed; she was deluded, but she was dismally consistent. It was wonderfully characteristic of her that, having invented a fine theory, about Gilbert Osmond, she loved him not for what he really possessed, but for his very poverties dressed out as honours. Ralph remembered what he had said to his father about wishing to put it into her power to meet the requirements of her imagination. He had done so, and the girl had taken full advantage of the luxury. Poor Ralph felt sick; he felt ashamed. Isabel had uttered her last words with a low solemnity of conviction which virtually terminated the discussion, and she closed it formally by turning away and walking back to the house. Ralph walked beside her, and they passed into the court together and reached the big staircase. Here he stopped and Isabel paused, turning on him a face of elation--absolutely and perversely of gratitude. His opposition had made her own conception of her conduct clearer to her. "Shall you not come up to breakfast?" she asked. "No; I want no breakfast; I'm not hungry." "You ought to eat," said the girl; "you live on air." "I do, very much, and I shall go back into the garden and take another mouthful. I came thus far simply to say this. I told you last year that if you were to get into trouble I should feel terribly sold. That's how I feel to-day." "Do you think I'm in trouble?" "One's in trouble when one's in error." "Very well," said Isabel; "I shall never complain of my trouble to you!" And she moved up the staircase. Ralph, standing there with his hands in his pockets, followed her with his eyes; then the lurking chill of the high-walled court struck him and made him shiver, so that he returned to the garden to breakfast on the Florentine sunshine.

It's a beautiful afternoon, and Isabel sees Ralph sitting outside. Ralph apologizes for not having congratulated Isabel on her engagement. Ralph says that he's surprised that Isabel's allowed herself to be caught in a cage. Isabel says that she's done with exploring the world. She wants to create her own space now, and settle down. Ralph wishes that she had waited a little longer, so that more light could be shed on the decision. Ralph longs to convince Isabel that she's jumping the gun, but she won't hear of it. Her cousin sees Isabel as someone who was soaring at the top of her game, and doesn't see why she would settle for Osmond. Ralph confesses that he does not trust Osmond. Ralph says that Osmond is the personification of taste , and that the other man thinks too much of himself. Ralph says that he only is saying these things because he loves Isabel. As we know all too well by now, this is not the thing to say to Isabel if you want her to listen. Predictably, she is annoyed by this, figuring that he's yet another suitor. However, Ralph's love is different - he genuinely wants the best for her, since his love is hopeless and he doesn't expect to gain anything from it. Isabel says that she likes Osmond because he is the opposite of Lord Warburton. He has none of the privileges or things going for him, but he knows everything. Ralph is shocked with how Isabel has changed. She totally believes in her charming theories about Osmond, but she's so, so, so wrong. Ralph is saddened to think that Isabel is using the money he won for her in utterly the wrong fashion. He only wanted her to be free, and she has chosen to be tied down. Ralph says that Isabel is in trouble, because she's in the wrong. This rubs Isabel the wrong way, and she tells Ralph that she won't ever come to him with her troubles. Isabel goes into the house for breakfast, while Ralph moves to the sun-lit garden.

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