Page 550 - the-portrait-of-a-lady

in fact frustrated by the duties of her profession; but she had
sent a letter, less gracious than Madame Merle’s, intimating
that, had she been able to cross the Atlantic, she would have
been present not only as a witness but as a critic. Her return
to Europe had taken place somewhat later, and she had ef-
fected a meeting with Isabel in the autumn, in Paris, when
she had indulged-perhaps a trifle too freely-her critical ge-
nius. Poor Osmond, who was chiefly the subject of it, had
protested so sharply that Henrietta was obliged to declare to
Isabel that she had taken a step which put a barrier between
them. ‘It isn’t in the least that you’ve married-it is that you
have married him,’ she had deemed it her duty to remark;
agreeing, it will be seen, much more with Ralph Touchett
than she suspected, though she had few of his hesitations
and compunctions. Henrietta’s second visit to Europe, how-
ever, was not apparently to have been made in vain; for just
at the moment when Osmond had declared to Isabel that he
really must object to that newspaper-woman, and Isabel had
answered that it seemed to her he took Henrietta too hard,
the good Mr. Bantling had appeared upon the scene and
proposed that they should take a run down to Spain. Hen-
rietta’s letters from Spain had proved the most acceptable
she had yet published, and there had been one in especial,
dated from the Alhambra and entitled ‘Moors and Moon-
light,’ which generally passed for her masterpiece. Isabel
had been secretly disappointed at her husband’s not see-
ing his way simply to take the poor girl for funny. She even
wondered if his sense of fun, or of the funny-which would
be his sense of humour, wouldn’t it?-were by chance defec-

550 The Portrait of a Lady