Page 648 - the-portrait-of-a-lady

Tribune and he slowly accompanied her.
‘I suppose I’ve seen it, but I didn’t know it was yours.
I don’t remember pictures-especially that sort.’ She had
pointed out her favourite work, and he asked her if it was
about Correggio she wished to talk with him.
‘No,’ said Henrietta, it’s about something less harmoni-
ous!’ They the small, brilliant room, a splendid cabinet of
treasures, to themselves; there was only a custode hovering
about the Medicean Venus. ‘I want you to do me a favour,’
Miss Stackpole went on.
Caspar Goodwood frowned a little, but he expressed no
embarrassment at the sense of not looking eager. His face
was that of a much older man than our earlier friend. ‘I’m
sure it’s something I shan’t like,’ he said rather loudly.
‘No, I don’t think you’ll like it. If you did it would be no
favour.’
‘Well, let’s hear it,’ he went on in the tone of a man quite
conscious of his patience.
‘You may say there’s no particular reason why you should
do me a favour. Indeed I only know of one: the fact that if
you’d let me I’d gladly do you one.’ Her soft, exact tone, in
which there was no attempt at effect, had an extreme sincer-
ity; and her companion, though he presented rather a hard
surface, couldn’t help being touched by it. When he was
touched he rarely showed it, however, by the usual signs;
he neither blushed, nor looked away, nor looked conscious.
He only fixed his attention more directly; he seemed to
consider with added firmness. Henrietta continued there-
fore disinterestedly, without the sense of an advantage. ‘I

648 The Portrait of a Lady