Page 212 - the-portrait-of-a-lady

Chapter 16

She had had no hidden motive in wishing him not to take
her home; it simply struck her that for some days past she
had consumed an inordinate quantity of his time, and the
independent spirit of the American girl whom extravagance
of aid places in an attitude that she ends by finding ‘affect-
ed’ had made her decide that for these few hours she must
suffice to herself. She had moreover a great fondness for in-
tervals of solitude, which since her arrival in England had
been but meagrely met. It was a luxury she could always
command at home and she had wittingly missed it. That
evening, however, an incident occurred which—had there
been a critic to note it—would have taken all colour from
the theory that the wish to be quite by herself had caused
her to dispense with her cousin’s attendance. Seated toward
nine o’clock in the dim illumination of Pratt’s Hotel and
trying with the aid of two tall candles to lose herself in a
volume she had brought from Gardencourt, she succeeded
only to the extent of reading other words than those printed
on the page—words that Ralph had spoken to her that after-
noon. Suddenly the well-muffled knuckle of the waiter was
applied to the door, which presently gave way to his exhibi-
tion, even as a glorious trophy, of the card of a visitor. When
this memento had offered to her fixed sight the name of Mr.
Caspar Goodwood she let the man stand before her without

212 The Portrait of a Lady