Page 156 - the-portrait-of-a-lady

Chapter 13

It was this feeling and not the wish to ask advice—she had
no desire whatever for that—that led her to speak to her un-
cle of what had taken place. She wished to speak to some
one; she should feel more natural, more human, and her un-
cle, for this purpose, presented himself in a more attractive
light than either her aunt or her friend Henrietta. Her cous-
in of course was a possible confidant; but she would have
had to do herself violence to air this special secret to Ralph.
So the next day, after breakfast, she sought her occasion.
Her uncle never left his apartment till the afternoon, but he
received his cronies, as he said, in his dressing-room. Isabel
had quite taken her place in the class so designated, which,
for the rest, included the old man’s son, his physician, his
personal servant, and even Miss Stackpole. Mrs. Touchett
did not figure in the list, and this was an obstacle the less
to Isabel’s finding her host alone. He sat in a complicated
mechanical chair, at the open window of his room, looking
westward over the park and the river, with his newspapers
and letters piled up beside him, his toilet freshly and mi-
nutely made, and his smooth, speculative face composed to
benevolent expectation.
She approached her point directly. ‘I think I ought to let
you know that Lord Warburton has asked me to marry him.
I suppose I ought to tell my aunt; but it seems best to tell

156 The Portrait of a Lady