Chapter XLVIII
 
One day, toward the end of February, Ralph Touchett made up his mind to return to England. He had his own reasons for this decision, which he was not bound to communicate; but Henrietta Stackpole, to whom he mentioned his intention, flattered herself that she guessed them. She forbore to express them, however; she only said, after a moment, as she sat by his sofa: “I suppose you know you can’t go alone?”
 
“I’ve no idea of doing that,” Ralph answered. “I shall have people with me.”
 
“What do you mean by ‘people’? Servants whom you pay?”
 
“Ah,” said Ralph jocosely, “after all, they’re human beings.”
 
“Are there any women among them?” Miss Stackpole desired to know.
 
“You speak as if I had a dozen! No, I confess I haven’t a soubrette in my employment.”
 
“Well,” said Henrietta calmly, “you can’t go to England that way. You must have a woman’s care.”
 
“I’ve had so much of yours for the past fortnight that it will last me a good while.”
 
“You’ve not had enough of it yet. I guess I’ll go with you,” said Henrietta.
 
“Go with me?” Ralph slowly raised himself from his sofa.
 
“Yes, I know you don’t like me, but I’ll go with you all the same. It would be better for your health to lie down again.”
 
Ralph looked at her a little; then he slowly relapsed. “I like you very much,” he said in a moment.
 
Miss Stackpole gave one of her infrequent laughs. “You needn’t think that by saying that you can buy me off. I’ll go with you, and what is more I’ll take care of you.”
 
“You’re a very good woman,” said Ralph.
 
“Wait till I get you safely home before you say that. It won’t be easy. But you had better go, all the same.”
 
Before she left him, Ralph said to her: “Do you really mean to take care of me?”
 
“Well, I mean to try.”
 
“I notify you then that I submit. Oh, I submit!” And it was perhaps a sign of submission that a few minutes after she had left him alone he burst into a loud fit of laughter. It seemed to him so inconsequent, such a conclusive proof of his having abdicated all functions and renounced all exercise, that he should start on a journey across Europe under the supervision of Miss Stackpole. And the great oddity was that the prospect pleased him; he was gratefully, luxuriously passive. He felt even impatient to start; and indeed he had an immense longing to see his own house again. The end of everything was at hand; it seemed to him he could stretch out his arm and touch the goal. But he wanted to die at home; it was the only wish he had left — to extend himself in the large quiet room where he had last seen his father lie, and close his eyes upon the summer dawn.
 
That same day Caspar Goodwood came to see him, and he informed his visitor that Miss Stackpole had taken him up and was to conduct him back to England. “Ah then,” said Caspar, “I’m afraid I shall be a fifth wheel to the coach. Mrs. Osmond has made me promise to go with you.”
 
“Good heavens — it’s the golden age! You’re all too kind.”
 
“The kindness on my part is to her; it’s hardly to you.”
 
“Granting that, SHE’S kind,” smiled Ralph.
 
“To get people to go with you? Yes, that’s a sort of kindness,” Goodwood answered without lending himself to the joke. “For myself, however,” he added, “I’ll go so far as to say that I would much rather travel with you and Miss Stackpole than with Miss Stackpole alone.”
 
“And you’d rather stay here than do either,” said Ralph. “There’s really no need of your coming. Henrietta’s extraordinarily efficient.”
 
“I’m sure of that. But I’ve promised Mrs. Osmond.”
 
“You can easily get her to let you off.”
 
“She wouldn’t let me off for the world. She wants me to look after you, but that isn’t the principal thing. The principal thing is that she wants me to leave Rome.”
 
“Ah, you see too much in it,” Ralph suggested.
 
“I bore her,” Goodwood went on; “she has nothing to say to me, so she invented that.”
 
“Oh then, if it’s a convenience to her I certainly will take you with me. Though I don’t see why it should be a convenience,” Ralph added in a moment.
 
“Well,” said Caspar Goodwood simply, “she thinks I’m watching her.”
 
“Watching her?”
 
“Trying to make out if she’s happy.”
 
“That’s easy to make out,” said Ralph. “She’s the most visibly happy woman I know.”
 
“Exactly so; I’m satisfied,” Goodwood answered dryly. For all his dryness, however, he had more to say. “I’ve been watching her; I was an old friend and it seemed to me I had the right. She pretends to be happy; that was what she undertook to be; and I thought I should like to see for myself what it amounts to. I’ve seen,” he continued with a harsh ring in his voice, “and I don’t want to see any more. I’m now quite ready to go.”
 
“Do you know it strikes me as about time you should?” Ralph rejoined. And this was the only conversation these gentlemen had about Isabel Osmond.
 
Henrietta made her preparations for departure, and among them she found it proper to say a few words to the Countess Gemini, who returned at Miss Stackpole’s pension the visit which this lady had paid her in Florence.
 
“You were very wrong about Lord Warburton,” she remarked to the Countess. “I think it right you should know that.”
 
“About his making love to Isabel? My poor lady, he was at her house three times a day. He has left traces of his passage!” the Countess cried.
 
“He wished to marry your niece; that’s why he came to the house.”
 
The Countess stared, and then with an inconsiderate laugh: “Is that the story that Isabel tells? It isn’t bad, as such things go. If he wishes to marry my niece, pray why doesn’t he do it? Perhaps he has gone to buy the wedding-ring and will come back with it next month, after I’m gone.”
 
“No, he’ll not come back. Miss Osmond doesn’t wish to marry him.”
 
“She’s very accommodating! I knew she was fond of Isabel, but I didn’t know she carried it so far.”
 
“I don’t understand you,” said Henrietta coldly, and reflecting that the Countess was unpleasantly perverse. “I really must stick to my point — that Isabel never encouraged the attentions of Lord Warburton.”
 
“My dear friend, what do you and I know about it? All we know is that my brother’s capable of everything.”
 
“I don’t know what your brother’s capable of,” said Henrietta with dignity.
 
“It’s not her encouraging Warburton that I complain of; it’s her sending him away. I want particularly to see him. Do you suppose she thought I would make him faithless?” the Countess continued with audacious insistence. “However, she’s only keeping him, one can feel that. The house is full of him there; he’s quite in the air. Oh yes, he has left traces; I’m sure I shall see him yet.”
 
“Well,” said Henrietta after a little, with one of those inspirations which had made the fortune of her letters to the Interviewer, “perhaps he’ll be more successful with you than with Isabel!”
 
When she told her friend of the offer she had made Ralph Isabel replied that she could have done nothing that would have pleased her more. It had always been her faith that at bottom Ralph and this young woman were made to understand each other. “I don’t care whether he understands me or not,” Henrietta declared. “The great thing is that he shouldn’t die in the cars.”
 
“He won’t do that,” Isabel said, shaking her head with an extension of faith.
 
“He won’t if I can help it. I see you want us all to go. I don’t know what you want to do.”
 
“I want to be alone,” said Isabel.
 
“You won’t be that so long as you’ve so much company at home.”
 
“Ah, they’re part of the comedy. You others are spectators.”
 
“Do you call it a comedy, Isabel Archer?” Henrietta rather grimly asked.
 
“The tragedy then if you like. You’re all looking at me; it makes me uncomfortable.”
 
Henrietta engaged in this act for a while. “You’re like the stricken deer, seeking the innermost shade. Oh, you do give me such a sense of helplessness!” she broke out.
 
“I’m not at all helpless. There are many things I mean to do.”
 
“It’s not you I’m speaking of; it’s myself. It’s too much, having come on purpose, to leave you just as I find you.”
 
“You don’t do that; you leave me much refreshed,” Isabel said.
 
“Very mild refreshment — sour lemonade! I want you to promise me something.”
 
“I can’t do that. I shall never make another promise. I made such a solemn one four years ago, and I’ve succeeded so ill in keeping it.”
 
“You’ve had no encouragement. In this case I should give you the greatest. Leave your husband before the worst comes; that’s what I want you to promise.”
 
“The worst? What do you call the worst?”
 
“Before your character gets spoiled.”
 
“Do you mean my disposition? It won’t get spoiled,” Isabel answered, smiling. “I’m taking very good care of it. I’m extremely struck,” she added, turning away, “with the off-hand way in which you speak of a woman’s leaving her husband. It’s easy to see you’ve never had one!”
 
“Well,” said Henrietta as if she were beginning an argument, “nothing is more common in our Western cities, and it’s to them, after all, that we must look in the future.” Her argument, however, does not concern this history, which has too many other threads to unwind. She announced to Ralph Touchett that she was ready to leave Rome by any train he might designate, and Ralph immediately pulled himself together for departure. Isabel went to see him at the last, and he made the same remark that Henrietta had made. It struck him that Isabel was uncommonly glad to get rid of them all.
 
For all answer to this she gently laid her hand on his, and said in a low tone, with a quick smile: “My dear Ralph —!”
 
It was answer enough, and he was quite contented. But he went on in the same way, jocosely, ingenuously: “I’ve seen less of you than I might, but it’s better than nothing. And then I’ve heard a great deal about you.”
 
“I don’t know from whom, leading the life you’ve done.”
 
“From the voices of the air! Oh, from no one else; I never let other people speak of you. They always say you’re ‘charming,’ and that’s so flat.”
 
“I might have seen more of you certainly,” Isabel said. “But when one’s married one has so much occupation.”
 
“Fortunately I’m not married. When you come to see me in England I shall be able to entertain you with all the freedom of a bachelor.” He continued to talk as if they should certainly meet again, and succeeded in making the assumption appear almost just. He made no allusion to his term being near, to the probability that he should not outlast the summer. If he preferred it so, Isabel was willing enough; the reality was sufficiently distinct without their erecting finger-posts in conversation. That had been well enough for the earlier time, though about this, as about his other affairs, Ralph had never been egotistic. Isabel spoke of his journey, of the stages into which he should divide it, of the precautions he should take. “Henrietta’s my greatest precaution,” he went on. “The conscience of that woman’s sublime.”
 
“Certainly she’ll be very conscientious.”
 
“Will be? She has been! It’s only because she thinks it’s her duty that she goes with me. There’s a conception of duty for you.”
 
“Yes, it’s a generous one,” said Isabel, “and it makes me deeply ashamed. I ought to go with you, you know.”
 
“Your husband wouldn’t like that.”
 
“No, he wouldn’t like it. But I might go, all the same.”
 
“I’m startled by the boldness of your imagination. Fancy my being a cause of disagreement between a lady and her husband!”
 
“That’s why I don’t go,” said Isabel simply — yet not very lucidly.
 
Ralph understood well enough, however. “I should think so, with all those occupations you speak of.”
 
“It isn’t that. I’m afraid,” said Isabel. After a pause she repeated, as if to make herself, rather than him, hear the words: “I’m afraid.”
 
Ralph could hardly tell what her tone meant; it was so strangely deliberate — apparently so void of emotion. Did she wish to do public penance for a fault of which she had not been convicted? or were her words simply an attempt at enlightened self-analysis? However this might be, Ralph could not resist so easy an opportunity. “Afraid of your husband?”
 
“Afraid of myself!” she said, getting up. She stood there a moment and then added: “If I were afraid of my husband that would be simply my duty. That’s what women are expected to be.”
 
“Ah yes,” laughed Ralph; “but to make up for it there’s always some man awfully afraid of some woman!”
 
She gave no heed to this pleasantry, but suddenly took a different turn. “With Henrietta at the head of your little band,” she exclaimed abruptly, “there will be nothing left for Mr. Goodwood!”
 
“Ah, my dear Isabel,” Ralph answered, “he’s used to that. There is nothing left for Mr. Goodwood.”
 
She coloured and then observed, quickly, that she must leave him. They stood together a moment; both her hands were in both of his. “You’ve been my best friend,” she said.
 
“It was for you that I wanted — that I wanted to live. But I’m of no use to you.”
 
Then it came over her more poignantly that she should not see him again. She could not accept that; she could not part with him that way. “If you should send for me I’d come,” she said at last.
 
“Your husband won’t consent to that.”
 
“Oh yes, I can arrange it.”
 
“I shall keep that for my last pleasure!” said Ralph.
 
In answer to which she simply kissed him. It was a Thursday, and that evening Caspar Goodwood came to Palazzo Roccanera. He was among the first to arrive, and he spent some time in conversation with Gilbert Osmond, who almost always was present when his wife received. They sat down together, and Osmond, talkative, communicative, expansive, seemed possessed with a kind of intellectual gaiety. He leaned back with his legs crossed, lounging and chatting, while Goodwood, more restless, but not at all lively, shifted his position, played with his hat, made the little sofa creak beneath him. Osmond’s face wore a sharp, aggressive smile; he was as a man whose perceptions have been quickened by good news. He remarked to Goodwood that he was sorry they were to lose him; he himself should particularly miss him. He saw so few intelligent men — they were surprisingly scarce in Rome. He must be sure to come back; there was something very refreshing, to an inveterate Italian like himself, in talking with a genuine outsider.
 
“I’m very fond of Rome, you know,” Osmond said; “but there’s nothing I like better than to meet people who haven’t that superstition. The modern world’s after all very fine. Now you’re thoroughly modern and yet are not at all common. So many of the moderns we see are such very poor stuff. If they’re the children of the future we’re willing to die young. Of course the ancients too are often very tiresome. My wife and I like everything that’s really new — not the mere pretence of it. There’s nothing new, unfortunately, in ignorance and stupidity. We see plenty of that in forms that offer themselves as a revelation of progress, of light. A revelation of vulgarity! There’s a certain kind of vulgarity which I believe is really new; I don’t think there ever was anything like it before. Indeed I don’t find vulgarity, at all, before the present century. You see a faint menace of it here and there in the last, but to-day the air has grown so dense that delicate things are literally not recognised. Now, we’ve liked you —!” With which he hesitated a moment, laying his hand gently on Goodwood’s knee and smiling with a mixture of assurance and embarrassment. “I’m going to say something extremely offensive and patronising, but you must let me have the satisfaction of it. We’ve liked you because — because you’ve reconciled us a little to the future. If there are to be a certain number of people like you — a la bonne heure! I’m talking for my wife as well as for myself, you see. She speaks for me, my wife; why shouldn’t I speak for her? We’re as united,............