"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."
第 91 页 共 391 页
原版英语阅读网
"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."
第 92 页 共 391 页
原版英语阅读网
"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.
第 93 页 共 391 页
原版英语阅读网
"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."
第 94 页 共 391 页
原版英语阅读网
"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."
第 95 页 共 391 页
原版英语阅读网
"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.
CHAPTER XV
It had been arranged that the two young ladies should proceed to London under Ralph's escort,
though Mrs. Touchett looked with little favour on the plan. It was just the sort of plan, she said,
that Miss Stackpole would be sure to suggest, and she enquired if the correspondent of the
Interviewer was to take the party to stay at her favourite boarding-house.
"I don't care where she takes us to stay, so long as there's local colour," said Isabel. "That's what
we're going to London for."
"I suppose that after a girl has refused an English lord she may do anything," her aunt rejoined.
"After that one needn't stand on trifles."
"Should you have liked me to marry Lord Warburton?" Isabel enquired.
"Of course I should."
"I thought you disliked the English so much."
"So I do; but it's all the greater reason for making use of them."
"Is that your idea of marriage?" And Isabel ventured to add that her aunt appeared to her to have
made very little use of Mr. Touchett.
"Your uncle's not an English nobleman," said Mrs. Touchett, "though even if he had been I should
still probably have taken up my residence in Florence."
"Do you think Lord Warburton could make me any better than I am?" the girl asked with some
animation. "I don't mean I'm too good to improve. I mean that I don't love Lord Warburton enough
to marry him."
"You did right to refuse him then," said Mrs. Touchett in her smallest, sparest voice. "Only, the
next great offer you get, I hope you'll manage to come up to your standard."
"We had better wait till the offer comes before we talk about it. I hope very much I may have no
more offers for the present. They upset me completely."
"You probably won't be troubled with them if you adopt permanently the Bohemian manner of
life. However, I've promised Ralph not to criticise."
"I'll do whatever Ralph says is right," Isabel returned. "I've unbounded confidence in Ralph."
"His mother's much obliged to you!" this lady dryly laughed.
第 96 页 共 391 页
原版英语阅读网
"It seems to me indeed she ought to feel it!" Isabel irrepressibly answered.
Ralph had assured her that there would be no violation of decency in their paying a visit--the little
party of three--to the sights of the metropolis; but Mrs. Touchett took a different view. Like many
ladies of her country who had lived a long time in Europe, she had completely lost her native tact
on such points, and in her reaction, not in itself deplorable, against the liberty allowed to young
persons beyond the seas, had fallen into gratuitous and exaggerated scruples. Ralph accompanied
their visitors to town and established them at a quiet inn in a street that ran at right angles to
Piccadilly. His first idea had been to take them to his father's house in Winchester Square, a large,
dull mansion which at this period of the year was shrouded in silence and brown holland; but he
bethought himself that, the cook being at Gardencourt, there was no one in the house to get them
their meals, and Pratt's Hotel accordingly became their resting-place. Ralph, on his side, found
quarters in Winchester Square, having a "den" there of which he was very fond and being familiar
with deeper fears than that of a cold kitchen. He availed himself largely indeed of the resources of
Pratt's Hotel, beginning his day with an early visit to his fellow travellers, who had Mr. Pratt in
person, in a large bulging white waistcoat, to remove their dish-covers. Ralph turned up, as he said,
after breakfast, and the little party made out a scheme of entertainment for the day. As London
wears in the month of September a face blank but for its smears of prior service, the young man,
who occasionally took an apologetic tone, was obliged to remind his companion, to Miss
Stackpole's high derision, that there wasn't a creature in town.
"I suppose you mean the aristocracy are absent," Henrietta answered; "but I don't think you could
have a better proof that if they were absent altogether they wouldn't be missed. It seems to me the
place is about as full as it can be. There's no one here, of course, but three or four millions of
people. What is it you call them--the lower-middle class? They're only the population of London,
and that's of no consequence."
Ralph declared that for him the aristocracy left no void that Miss Stackpole herself didn't fill, and
that a more contented man was nowhere at that moment to be found. In this he spoke the truth, for
the stale September days, in the huge half-empty town, had a charm wrapped in them as a coloured
gem might be wrapped in a dusty cloth. When he went home at night to the empty house in
Winchester Square, after a chain of hours with his comparatively ardent friends, he wandered into
the big dusky dining-room, where the candle he took from the hall-table, after letting himself in,
constituted the only illumination. The square was still, the house was still; when he raised one of
