Page 236 - the-portrait-of-a-lady

vaguely for what she should put into it, the tears suddenly
rose to her eyes. It was perhaps for this reason that when
Ralph came back at two o’clock to take her to the station
she was not yet ready. He found Miss Stackpole, however,
in the sitting-room, where she had just risen from her lun-
cheon, and this lady immediately expressed her regret at his
father’s illness.
‘He’s a grand old man,’ she said; ‘he’s faithful to the last.
If it’s really to be the last—pardon my alluding to it, but you
must often have thought of the possibility—I’m sorry that I
shall not be at Gardencourt.’
‘You’ll amuse yourself much more in Bedfordshire.’
‘I shall be sorry to amuse myself at such a time,’ said
Henrietta with much propriety. But she immediately added:
‘I should like so to commemorate the closing scene.’
‘My father may live a long time,’ said Ralph simply. Then,
adverting to topics more cheerful, he interrogated Miss
Stackpole as to her own future.
Now that Ralph was in trouble she addressed him in a
tone of larger allowance and told him that she was much
indebted to him for having made her acquainted with Mr.
Bantling. ‘He has told me just the things I want to know,’ she
said; ‘all the society-items and all about the royal family. I
can’t make out that what he tells me about the royal family
is much to their credit; but he says that’s only my peculiar
way of looking at it. Well, all I want is that he should give
me the facts; I can put them together quick enough, once
I’ve got them.’ And she added that Mr. Bantling had been
so good as to promise to come and take her out that after-

236 The Portrait of a Lady