Page 122 - the-portrait-of-a-lady

be natural.’
‘An Englishman’s never so natural as when he’s holding
his tongue,’ Isabel declared.
It was not apparent, at the end of three days, that her
cousin had, according to her prophecy, lost his heart to their
visitor, though he had spent a good deal of time in her soci-
ety. They strolled about the park together and sat under the
trees, and in the afternoon, when it was delightful to float
along the Thames, Miss Stackpole occupied a place in the
boat in which hitherto Ralph had had but a single compan-
ion. Her presence proved somehow less irreducible to soft
particles than Ralph had expected in the natural perturba-
tion of his sense of the perfect solubility of that of his cousin;
for the correspondent of the Interviewer prompted mirth in
him, and he had long since decided that the crescendo of
mirth should be the flower of his declining days. Henrietta,
on her side, failed a little to justify Isabel’s declaration with
regard to her indifference to masculine opinion; for poor
Ralph appeared to have presented himself to her as an ir-
ritating problem, which it would be almost immoral not to
work out.
‘What does he do for a living?’ she asked of Isabel the eve-
ning of her arrival. ‘Does he go round all day with his hands
in his pockets?’
‘He does nothing,’ smiled Isabel; ‘he’s a gentleman of
large leisure.’
‘Well, I call that a shame—when I have to work like a car-
conductor,’ Miss Stackpole replied. ‘I should like to show
him up.’

122 The Portrait of a Lady