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.
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 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
