Page 706 - the-portrait-of-a-lady

watching her.’
‘Watching her?’
‘Trying to make out if she’s happy.’
‘That’s easy to make out,’ said Ralph. ‘She’s the most vis-
ibly 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 un-
dertook 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 pen-
sion the visit which this lady had paid her in Florence.
‘You were very wrong about Lord Warburton,’ she re-
marked 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 pas-
sage!’ 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

706 The Portrait of a Lady