The Portrait of a Lady. Генри Джеймс

you haven't heard of every one. I don't believe he has ever heard of you; but that's no reason why Isabel shouldn't marry him."

      Ralph gave a mild ambiguous laugh. "What a rage you have for marrying people! Do you remember how you wanted to marry me the other day?"

      "I've got over that. You don't know how to take such ideas. Mr. Goodwood does, however; and that's what I like about him. He's a splendid man and a perfect gentleman, and Isabel knows it."

      "Is she very fond of him?"

      "If she isn't she ought to be. He's simply wrapped up in her."

      "And you wish me to ask him here," said Ralph reflectively.

      "It would be an act of true hospitality."

      "Caspar Goodwood," Ralph continued—"it's rather a striking name."

      "I don't care anything about his name. It might be Ezekiel Jenkins, and I should say the same. He's the only man I have ever seen whom I think worthy of Isabel."

      "You're a very devoted friend," said Ralph.

      "Of course I am. If you say that to pour scorn on me I don't care."

      "I don't say it to pour scorn on you; I'm very much struck with it."

      "You're more satiric than ever, but I advise you not to laugh at Mr. Goodwood."

      "I assure you I'm very serious; you ought to understand that," said Ralph.

      In a moment his companion understood it. "I believe you are; now you're too serious."

      "You're difficult to please."

      "Oh, you're very serious indeed. You won't invite Mr. Goodwood."

      "I don't know," said Ralph. "I'm capable of strange things. Tell me a little about Mr. Goodwood. What's he like?"

      "He's just the opposite of you. He's at the head of a cotton-factory; a very fine one."

      "Has he pleasant manners?" asked Ralph.

      "Splendid manners—in the American style."

      "Would he be an agreeable member of our little circle?"

      "I don't think he'd care much about our little circle. He'd concentrate on Isabel."

      "And how would my cousin like that?"

      "Very possibly not at all. But it will be good for her. It will call back her thoughts."

      "Call them back—from where?"

      "From foreign parts and other unnatural places. Three months ago she gave Mr. Goodwood every reason to suppose he was acceptable to her, and it's not worthy of Isabel to go back on a real friend simply because she has changed the scene. I've changed the scene too, and the effect of it has been to make me care more for my old associations than ever. It's my belief that the sooner Isabel changes it back again the better. I know her well enough to know that she would never be truly happy over here, and I wish her to form some strong American tie that will act as a preservative."

      "Aren't you perhaps a little too much in a hurry?" Ralph enquired. "Don't you think you ought to give her more of a chance in poor old England?"

      "A chance to ruin her bright young life? One's never too much in a hurry to save a precious human creature from drowning."

      "As I understand it then," said Ralph, "you wish me to push Mr. Goodwood overboard after her. Do you know," he added, "that I've never heard her mention his name?"

      Henrietta gave a brilliant smile. "I'm delighted to hear that; it proves how much she thinks of him."

      Ralph appeared to allow that there was a good deal in this, and he surrendered to thought while his companion watched him askance. "If I should invite Mr. Goodwood," he finally said, "it would be to quarrel with him."

      "Don't do that; he'd prove the better man."

      "You certainly are doing your best to make me hate him! I really don't think I can ask him. I should be afraid of being rude to him."

      "It's just as you please," Henrietta returned. "I had no idea you were in love with her yourself."

      "Do you really believe that?" the young man asked with lifted eyebrows.

      "That's the most natural speech I've ever heard you make! Of course I believe it," Miss Stackpole ingeniously said.

      "Well," Ralph concluded, "to prove to you that you're wrong I'll invite him. It must be of course as a friend of yours."

      "It will not be as a friend of mine that he'll come; and it will not be to prove to me that I'm wrong that you'll ask him—but to prove it to yourself!"

      These last words of Miss Stackpole's (on which the two presently separated) contained an amount of truth which Ralph Touchett was obliged to recognise; but it so far took the edge from too sharp a recognition that, in spite of his suspecting it would be rather more indiscreet to keep than to break his promise, he wrote Mr. Goodwood a note of six lines, expressing the pleasure it would give Mr. Touchett the elder that he should join a little party at Gardencourt, of which Miss Stackpole was a valued member. Having sent his letter (to the care of a banker whom Henrietta suggested) he waited in some suspense. He had heard this fresh formidable figure named for the first time; for when his mother had mentioned on her arrival that there was a story about the girl's having an "admirer" at home, the idea had seemed deficient in reality and he had taken no pains to ask questions the answers to which would involve only the vague or the disagreeable. Now, however, the native admiration of which his cousin was the object had become more concrete; it took the form of a young man who had followed her to London, who was interested in a cotton-mill and had manners in the most splendid of the American styles. Ralph had two theories about this intervenes. Either his passion was a sentimental fiction of Miss Stackpole's (there was always a sort of tacit understanding among women, born of the solidarity of the sex, that they should discover or invent lovers for each other), in which case he was not to be feared and would probably not accept the invitation; or else he would accept the invitation and in this event prove himself a creature too irrational to demand further consideration. The latter clause of Ralph's argument might have seemed incoherent; but it embodied his conviction that if Mr. Goodwood were interested in Isabel in the serious manner described by Miss Stackpole he would not care to present himself at Gardencourt on a summons from the latter lady. "On this supposition," said Ralph, "he must regard her as a thorn on the stem of his rose; as an intercessor he must find her wanting in tact."

      Two days after he had sent his invitation he received a very short note from Caspar Goodwood, thanking him for it, regretting that other engagements made a visit to Gardencourt impossible and presenting many compliments to Miss Stackpole. Ralph handed the note to Henrietta, who, when she had read it, exclaimed: "Well, I never have heard of anything so stiff!"

      "I'm afraid he doesn't care so much about my cousin as you suppose," Ralph observed.

      "No, it's not that; it's some subtler motive. His nature's very deep. But I'm determined to fathom it, and I shall write to him to know what he means."

      His refusal of Ralph's overtures was vaguely disconcerting; from the moment he declined to come to Gardencourt our friend began to think him of importance. He asked himself what it signified to him whether Isabel's admirers should be desperadoes or laggards; they were not rivals of his and were perfectly welcome to act out their genius. Nevertheless he felt much curiosity as to the result of Miss Stackpole's promised enquiry into the causes of Mr. Goodwood's stiffness—a curiosity for the present ungratified, inasmuch as when he asked her three days later if she had written to London she was obliged to confess she had written in vain. Mr. Goodwood had not replied.

      "I suppose he's thinking it over," she said; "he thinks everything over; he's not really at all impetuous. But I'm accustomed to having my letters answered the same day." She presently proposed to Isabel, at all events, that they should make an excursion to London together. "If I must tell the truth," she observed, "I'm not seeing much at this place, and I shouldn't think you were either. I've not even seen that aristocrat— what's his name?—Lord Warburton. He seems