Page 231 - the-portrait-of-a-lady

cared only for what it intimated with regard to her friend.
‘Isabel Archer,’ she observed with equal abruptness and so-
lemnity, ‘if you marry one of these people I’ll never speak
to you again!’
‘Before making so terrible a threat you had better wait
till I’m asked,’ Isabel replied. Never having said a word to
Miss Stackpole about Lord Warburton’s overtures, she had
now no impulse whatever to justify herself to Henrietta by
telling her that she had refused that nobleman.
‘Oh, you’ll be asked quick enough, once you get off on
the Continent. Annie Climber was asked three times in Ita-
ly—poor plain little Annie.’
‘Well, if Annie Climber wasn’t captured why should I
be?’
‘I don’t believe Annie was pressed; but you’ll be.’
‘That’s a flattering conviction,’ said Isabel without
alarm.
‘I don’t flatter you, Isabel, I tell you the truth!’ cried her
friend. ‘I hope you don’t mean to tell me that you didn’t give
Mr. Goodwood some hope.’
‘I don’t see why I should tell you anything; as I said to
you just now, I can’t trust you. But since you’re so much in-
terested in Mr. Goodwood I won’t conceal from you that he
returns immediately to America.’
‘You don’t mean to say you’ve sent him off? ‘ Henrietta
almost shrieked.
‘I asked him to leave me alone; and I ask you the same,
Henrietta.’ Miss Stackpole glittered for an instant with dis-
may and then passed to the mirror over the chimney-piece

231