Page 799 - the-portrait-of-a-lady

‘In default of a better my having promised will do,’ Isa-
bel suggested.
‘Yes; that’s why I hate it.’
‘Don’t speak of it now. I’ve a little time. Coming away
was a complication, but what will going back be?’
‘You must remember, after all, that he won’t make you a
scene!’ said Henrietta with much intention.
‘He will, though,’ Isabel answered gravely. ‘It won’t be the
scene of a moment; it will be a scene of the rest of my life.’
For some minutes the two women sat and considered
this remainder, and then Miss Stackpole, to change the sub-
ject, as Isabel had requested, announced abruptly:
‘I’ve been to stay with Lady Pensil!’
‘Ah, the invitation came at last!’
‘Yes; it took five years. But this time she wanted to see
me.’
‘Naturally enough.’
‘It was more natural than I think you know,’ said Hen-
rietta, who fixed her eyes on a distant point. And then she
added, turning suddenly: ‘Isabel Archer, I beg your pardon.
You don’t know why? Because I criticized you, and yet I’ve
gone further than you. Mr. Osmond, at least, was born on
the other side!’
It was a moment before Isabel grasped her meaning; this
sense was so modestly, or at least so ingeniously, veiled. Isa-
bel’s mind was not possessed at present with the comicality
of things; but she greeted with a quick laugh the image that
her companion had raised. She immediately recovered
herself, however, and with the right excess of intensity,

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