Page 755 - the-portrait-of-a-lady

letting her know of his critical condition and suggesting
that she should lose no time in returning to Europe. Mrs.
Touchett had telegraphed an acknowledgement of this ad-
monition, and the only further news Isabel received from
her was the second telegram I have just quoted.
Isabel stood a moment looking at the latter missive; then,
thrusting it into her pocket, she went straight to the door
of her husband’s study. Here she again paused an instant,
after which she opened the door and went in. Osmond was
seated at the table near the window with a folio volume be-
fore him, propped against a pile of books. This volume was
open at a page of small coloured plates, and Isabel present-
ly saw that he had been copying from it the drawing of an
antique coin. A box of water-colours and fine brushes lay
before him, and he had already transferred to a sheet of im-
maculate paper the delicate, finely-tinted disk. His back was
turned toward the door, but he recognized his wife without
looking round.
‘Excuse me for disturbing you,’ she said.
‘When I come to your room I always knock,’ he an-
swered, going on with his work.
‘I forgot; I had something else to think of. My cousin’s
dying.’
‘Ah, I don’t believe that,’ said Osmond, looking at his
drawing through a magnifying glass. ‘He was dying when
we married; he’ll outlive us all.’
Isabel gave herself no time, no thought, to appreciate
the careful cynicism of this declaration; she simply went on
quickly, full of her own intention: ‘My aunt has telegraphed

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