Page 650 - the-portrait-of-a-lady

sternly. ‘How do you know I’m discontented?’
‘Well,’ said Henrietta, hesitating a little, ‘you seem never
to have cared for another.’
‘How do you know what I care for?’ he cried with a big
blush. ‘Just now I care to go to Rome.’
Henrietta looked at him in silence, with a sad yet lumi-
nous expression. ‘Well,’ she observed at last, ‘I only wanted
to tell you what I think; I had it on my mind. Of course
you think it’s none of my business. But nothing is any one’s
business on that principle.’
‘It’s very kind of you; I’m greatly obliged to you for your
interest,’ said Caspar Goodwood. ‘I shall go to Rome and I
shan’t hurt Mrs. Osmond.’
‘You won’t hurt her, perhaps. But will you help her?-that’s
the real issue.’
‘Is she in need of help?’ he asked slowly, with a penetrat-
ing look.
‘Most women always are,’ said Henrietta with consci-
entious evasiveness and generalizing less hopefully than
usual. ‘If you go to Rome,’ she added, ‘I hope you’ll be a true
friend-not a selfish one!’ And she turned off and began to
look at the pictures.
Caspar Goodwood let her go and stood watching her
while she wandered round the room; but after a moment
he rejoined her. ‘You’ve heard something about her here,’
he then resumed. ‘I should like to know what you’ve heard.’
Henrietta had never prevaricated in her life, and, though
on this occasion there might have been a fitness in doing so,
she decided, after thinking some minutes, to make no su-

650 The Portrait of a Lady