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.
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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.
VOLUME II
CHAPTER XXVIII
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
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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
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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."
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"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."
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"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.
CHAPTER XXIX
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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
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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
