Page 798 - the-portrait-of-a-lady

‘I see you’re in a great hurry to get your own. You’ll be at the
Paddington Station to-morrow morning at ten.’
‘Don’t come for my sake, Mr. Bantling,’ said Isabel.
‘He’ll come for mine,’ Henrietta declared as she ushered
her friend into a cab. And later, in a large dusky parlour
in Wimpole Street-to do her justice there had been dinner
enough-she asked those questions to which she had alluded
at the station. ‘Did your husband make you a scene about
your coming?’ That was Miss Stackpole’s first enquiry.
‘No; I can’t say he made a scene.’
‘He didn’t object then?’
‘Yes, he objected very much. But it was not what you’d
call a scene.’
‘What was it then?’
‘It was a very quiet conversation.’
Henrietta for a moment regarded her guest. ‘It must
have been hellish,’ she then remarked. And Isabel didn’t
deny that it had been hellish. But she confined herself to an-
swering Henrietta’s questions, which was easy, as they were
tolerably definite. For the present she offered her no new in-
formation. ‘Well,’ said Miss Stackpole at last, ‘I’ve only one
criticism to make. I don’t see why you promised little Miss
Osmond to go back.’
‘I’m not sure I myself see now,’ Isabel replied. ‘But I did
then.’
‘If you’ve forgotten your reason perhaps you won’t re-
turn.’
Isabel waited a moment. ‘Perhaps I shall find another.’
‘You’ll certainly never find a good one.’

798 The Portrait of a Lady