Page 214 - the-portrait-of-a-lady

‘It was apparently repugnant to you even to write to me,’
her visitor went on.
Isabel made no reply; the sense of Henrietta Stack-
pole’s treachery, as she momentarily qualified it, was strong
within her. ‘Henrietta’s certainly not a model of all the deli-
cacies!’ she exclaimed with bitterness: ‘It was a great liberty
to take.’
‘I suppose I’m not a model either—of those virtues or of
any others. The fault’s mine as much as hers.’
As Isabel looked at him it seemed to her that his jaw had
never been more square. This might have displeased her, but
she took a different turn. ‘No, it’s not your fault so much as
hers. What you’ve done was inevitable, I suppose, for you.’
‘It was indeed!’ cried Caspar Goodwood with a voluntary
laugh. ‘And now that I’ve come, at any rate, mayn’t I stay?’
‘You may sit down, certainly.’
She went back to her chair again, while her visitor took
the first place that offered, in the manner of a man accus-
tomed to pay little thought to that sort of furtherance. ‘I’ve
been hoping every day for an answer to my letter. You might
have written me a few lines.’
‘It wasn’t the trouble of writing that prevented me; I could
as easily have written you four pages as one. But my silence
was an intention,’ Isabel said. ‘I thought it the best thing.’
He sat with his eyes fixed on hers while she spoke; then
he lowered them and attached them to a spot in the carpet
as if he were making a strong effort to say nothing but what
he ought. He was a strong man in the wrong, and he was
acute enough to see that an uncompromising exhibition of

214 The Portrait of a Lady