The Portrait of A Lady (25 page)

‘‘There is nothing she can do so well. But you are many-sided.''

‘‘If one is two-sided, it is enough,'' said Isabel.

‘‘You are the most charming of polygons!'' Ralph broke out, with a laugh. At a glance from his companion, however, he became grave, and to prove it he went on— ‘‘You want to see life, as the young men say.''

‘‘I don't think I want to see it as the young men want to see it; but I do want to look about me.''

‘‘You want to drain the cup of experience.''

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

‘‘You want to see, but not to feel,'' said Ralph.

‘‘I don't think that if one is a sentient being, one can make the distinction,'' Isabel returned. ‘‘I am a good deal like Henrietta. The other day, when I asked her if she wished to marry, she said—‘Not till I have seen Europe!' I too don't wish to marry until I have seen Europe.''

‘‘You evidently expect that a crowned head will be struck with you.''

‘‘No, that would be worse than marrying Lord Warburton. But it is getting very dark,'' Isabel continued, ‘‘and I must go home.'' She rose from her place, but Ralph sat still a moment, looking at her. As he did not follow her, she stopped, and they remained awhile exchanging a gaze, full on either side, but especially on Ralph's, of utterances too vague for words.

‘‘You have answered my question,'' said Ralph at last. ‘‘You have told me what I wanted. I am greatly obliged to you.''

‘‘It seems to me I have told you very little.''

‘‘You have told me the great thing: that the world interests you and that you want to throw yourself into it.''

Isabel's silvery eyes shone for a moment in the darkness. ‘‘I never said that.''

‘‘I think you meant it. Don't repudiate it; it's so fine!''

‘‘I don't know what you are trying to fasten upon me, for I am not in the least an adventurous spirit. Women are not like men.''

Ralph slowly rose from his seat, and they walked together to the gate of the square. ‘‘No,'' he said; ‘‘women rarely boast of their courage; men do so with a certain frequency.''

‘‘Men have it to boast of!''

‘‘Women have it too; you have a great deal.''

‘‘Enough to go home in a cab to Pratt's Hotel; but not more.''

Ralph unlocked the gate, and after they had passed out he fastened it.

‘‘We will find your cab,'' he said; and as they turned towards a neighbouring street in which it seemed that this quest would be fruitful, he asked her again if he might not see her safely to the inn.

‘‘By no means,'' she answered; ‘‘you are very tired; you must go home and go to bed.''

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

‘‘When people forget I am a sick man I am often annoyed,'' he said. ‘‘But it's worse when they remember it!''

16

ISABEL had no hidden motive in wishing her cousin not to take her home; it simply seemed to her that for some days past she had consumed an inordinate quantity of his time, and the independent spirit of the American girl who ends by regarding perpetual assistance as a sort of derogation to her sanity had made her decide that for these few hours she must suffice to herself. She had moreover a great fondness for intervals of solitude, and since her arrival in England it had been but scantily gratified. It was a luxury she could always command at home, and she had 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 love of solitude had caused her to dispense with Ralph's attendance. She was sitting, towards nine o'clock, in the dim illumination of Pratt's Hotel, trying with the aid of two tall candles to lose herself in a volume she had brought from Gardencourt, but succeeding only to the extent of reading other words on the page than those that were printed there—words that Ralph had spoken to her in the afternoon.

Suddenly the well-muffled knuckle of the waiter was applied to the door, which presently admitted him, bearing the card of a visitor. This card, duly considered, offered to Isabel's startled vision the name of Mr. Caspar Goodwood. She let the servant stand before her inquiringly for some instants, without signifying her wishes.

‘‘Shall I show the gentleman up, ma'am?'' he asked at last, with a slightly encouraging inflexion.

Isabel hesitated still, and while she hesitated she glanced at the mirror.

‘‘He may come in,'' she said at last; and waited for him with some emotion.

Caspar Goodwood came in and shook hands with her. He said nothing till the servant had left the room again; then he said: ‘‘Why didn't you answer my letter?''

He spoke in a quick, full, slightly peremptory tone— the tone of a man whose questions were usually pointed, and who was capable of much insistence.

Isabel answered him by a question.

‘‘How did you know I was here?''

‘‘Miss Stackpole let me know,'' said Caspar Goodwood. ‘‘She told me that 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 of them had seated themselves; they stood there with a certain air of defiance, or at least of contention.

‘‘Henrietta never told me that she was writing to you,'' Isabel 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 should not see you. In so large a place as London it seemed to me very possible.''

‘‘Apparently it was disagreeable to you even to write to me,'' said Mr. Goodwood.

Isabel made no answer to this; the sense of Henrietta Stackpole's treachery, as she momentarily qualified it, was strong within her.

‘‘Henrietta is not delicate!'' she exclaimed with a certain bitterness. ‘‘It was a great liberty to take.''

‘‘I suppose I am not delicate either. The fault is 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; nevertheless she rejoined inconsequently: ‘‘No, it is not your fault so much as hers. What you have done is very natural.''

‘‘It is indeed!'' cried Caspar Goodwood, with a voluntary laugh. ‘‘And now that I have come, at any rate, may I not stay?''

‘‘You may sit down, certainly.''

And Isabel 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 the sort of chair he sat in.

‘‘I have been hoping every day for an answer to my letter,'' he said. ‘‘You might have written me a few lines.''

‘‘It was not the trouble of writing that prevented me; I could as easily have written you four pages as one. But my silence was deliberate; I thought it best.''

He sat with his eyes fixed on hers while she said this; 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 to say. 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 finding it agreeable to have an advantage of position over a person of this quality, and though she was not a girl to flaunt her advantage in his face, she was woman enough to enjoy being able to say, ‘‘You know you ought not to have written to me yourself!'' and to say it with a certain air of triumph.

Caspar Goodwood raised his eyes to hers again; they wore an expression of ardent remonstrance. He had a strong sense of justice, and he 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 the prohibition. I promised you that you should hear very soon.''

‘‘I did not say that I hoped never to hear from you,'' said Isabel.

‘‘Not for five years, then; for ten years. It is the same thing.''

‘‘Do you find it so? It seems to me there is 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.''

Isabel looked away while she spoke these words, for she knew they were of a much less earnest 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 hesitated, and then she broke out with even greater irrelevance, ‘‘What good do you expect to get by insisting?''

‘‘The good of not losing you.''

‘‘You have no right to talk about losing what is not yours. And even from your own point of view,'' Isabel added, ‘‘you ought to know when to let one alone.''

‘‘I displease 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 upon it.

‘‘Yes, you displease me very much, and the worst is that it is needless.''

Isabel knew that his was not a soft nature, from which pinpricks would draw blood; 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 recognized the fact that perfect frankness was her best weapon. To attempt to spare his sensibility or to escape from him edge-wise, as one might do from a man who had barred the way less sturdily—this, in dealing with Caspar Goodwood, who would take 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 firm, and he might always be trusted to dress his wounds himself. In measuring the effect of his suffering, one might always reflect that he had a sound constitution.

‘‘I can't reconcile myself to that,'' he said.

There was a dangerous liberality about this; for Isabel felt that it was quite open to him to say that he had not always displeased her.

‘‘I can't reconcile myself to it either, and it is not the state of things that ought to exist between us. If you would only try and 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 for a few months I should find I could keep it up indefinitely.''

‘‘Indefinitely is more than I ask. It is 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 that Isabel found irritating.

‘‘Are you not capable of making an effort?'' she demanded. ‘‘You are strong for everything else; why shouldn't you be strong for that?''

‘‘Because I am in love with you,'' said Caspar Goodwood simply. ‘‘If one is strong, one loves only the more strongly.''

‘‘There is a good deal in that''; and indeed our young lady felt the force of it. ‘‘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 is a great difference.''

‘‘Call it two, then,'' said Isabel, wondering whether a little cynicism might not be effective.

‘‘And what shall I gain by that?'' Mr. Goodwood asked, giving no sign of wincing.

‘‘You will have obliged me greatly.''

‘‘But what will be my reward?''

‘‘Do you need a reward for an act of generosity?''

‘‘Yes, when it involves a great sacrifice.''

‘‘There is no generosity without sacrifice. Men don't understand such things. If you make this sacrifice I shall admire you greatly.''

‘‘I don't care a straw for your admiration. Will you marry me? That is the question.''

‘‘Assuredly not, if I feel as I feel at present.''

‘‘Then I ask again, what I shall gain?''

‘‘You will gain quite as much as by worrying me to death!''

Caspar Goodwood bent his eyes again and gazed for a while into the crown of his hat. A deep flush over-spread his face, and Isabel could perceive that this dart at last had struck home. To see a strong man in pain had something terrible for her, and she immediately felt very sorry for her visitor.

‘‘Why do you make me say such things to you?'' she cried in a trembling voice. ‘‘I only want to be gentle— to be kind. It is not delightful to me to feel that 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 are considerate, as much as you can be; you have good reasons for what you do. But I don't want to marry. I shall probably never marry. I have a perfect right to feel that way, and it is no kindness to a woman to urge her—to persuade her against her will. If I give you pain I can only say I am very sorry. It is 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 circumstances, it is supposed, I believe, to be a sort of mockery. But try me some day.''