Page 414 - the-portrait-of-a-lady

eller. But she soon established her relation to the crisis. ‘I
don’t suppose you remember me, sir.’
‘Indeed I do remember you,’ said Lord Warburton. ‘I
asked you to come and see me, and you never came.’
‘I don’t go everywhere I’m asked,’ Miss Stackpole an-
swered coldly.
‘Ah well, I won’t ask you again,’ laughed the master of
Lockleigh.
‘If you do I’ll go; so be sure!’
Lord Warburton, for all his hilarity, seemed sure enough.
Mr. Bantling had stood by without claiming a recognition,
but he now took occasion to nod to his lordship, who an-
swered him with a friendly ‘Oh, you here, Bantling?’ and a
hand-shake.
‘Well,’ said Henrietta, ‘I didn’t know you knew him!’
‘I guess you don’t know every one I know,’ Mr. Bantling
rejoined facetiously.
‘I thought that when an Englishman knew a lord he al-
ways told you.’
‘Ah, I’m afraid Bantling was ashamed of me,’ Lord War-
burton laughed again. Isabel took pleasure in that note; she
gave a small sigh of relief as they kept their course home-
ward.
The next day was Sunday; she spent her morning over
two long letters—one to her sister Lily, the other to Madame
Merle; but in neither of these epistles did she mention the
fact that a rejected suitor had threatened her with another
appeal. Of a Sunday afternoon all good Romans (and the
best Romans are often the northern barbarians) follow the

414 The Portrait of a Lady