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the country for him-he would be sure to get on well there.
Then Lord Warburton asked Isabel if she remembered what
a good time she had had there and if she didn’t want to try it
again. Didn’t she want to see Gardencourt once more? Gar-
dencourt was really very good. Touchett didn’t take proper
care of it, but it was the sort of place you could hardly spoil
by letting it alone. Why didn’t they come and pay Touchett a
visit? He surely must have asked them. Hadn’t asked them?
What an ill-mannered wretch!-and Lord Warburton prom-
ised to give the master of Gardencourt a piece of his mind.
Of course it was a mere accident; he would be delighted to
have them. Spending a month with Touchett and a month
with himself, and seeing all the rest of the people they must
know there, they really wouldn’t find it half bad. Lord War-
burton added that it would amuse Miss Osmond as well,
who had told him that she had never been to England and
whom he had assured it was a country she deserved to see.
Of course she didn’t need to go to England to be admired-
that was her fate everywhere; but she would be an immense
success there, she certainly would, if that was any induce-
ment. He asked if she were not at home: couldn’t he say
good-bye? Not that he liked good-byes-he always funked
them. When he left England the other day he hadn’t said
good-bye to a two-legged creature. He had had half a mind
to leave Rome without troubling Mrs. Osmond for a final in-
terview. What could be more dreary than final interviews?
One never said the things one wanted-one remembered
them all an hour afterwards. On the other hand one usu-
ally said a lot of things one shouldn’t, simply from a sense

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