The Portrait of a Lady

place for days before the death of her uncle. She left the drawing-room and wandered about⁠—strolled into the library and along the gallery of pictures, where, in the deep silence, her footstep made an echo. Nothing was changed; she recognised everything she had seen years before; it might have been only yesterday she had stood there. She envied the security of valuable “pieces” which change by no hair’s breadth, only grow in value, while their owners lose inch by inch youth, happiness, beauty; and she became aware that she was walking about as her aunt had done on the day she had come to see her in Albany. She was changed enough since then⁠—that had been the beginning. It suddenly struck her that if her Aunt Lydia had not come that day in just that way and found her alone, everything might have been different. She might have had another life and she might have been a woman more blest. She stopped in the gallery in front of a small picture⁠—a charming and precious Bonington⁠—upon which her eyes rested a long time. But she was not looking at the picture; she was wondering whether if her aunt had not come that day in Albany she would have married Caspar Goodwood.

Mrs. Touchett appeared at last, just after Isabel had returned to the big uninhabited drawing-room. She looked a good deal older, but her eye was as bright as ever and her head as erect; her thin lips seemed a repository of latent meanings. She wore a little grey dress of the most undecorated fashion, and Isabel wondered, as she had wondered the first time, if her remarkable kinswoman resembled more a queen-regent or the matron of a gaol. Her lips felt very thin indeed on Isabel’s hot cheek.

“I’ve kept you waiting because I’ve been sitting with Ralph,” Mrs. Touchett said. “The nurse had gone to luncheon and I had taken her place. He has a man who’s supposed to look after him, but the man’s good for nothing; he’s always looking out of the window⁠—as if there were anything to see! I didn’t wish to move, because Ralph seemed to be sleeping and I was afraid the sound would disturb him. I waited till the nurse came back. I remembered you knew the house.”

“I find I know it better even than I thought; I’ve been walking everywhere,” Isabel answered. And then she asked if Ralph slept much.

“He lies with his eyes closed; he doesn’t move. But I’m not sure that it’s always sleep.”

“Will he see me? Can he speak to me?”

Mrs. Touchett declined the office of saying. “You can try him,” was the limit of her extravagance. And then she offered to conduct Isabel to her room. “I thought they had taken you there; but it’s not my house, it’s Ralph’s; and I don’t know what they do. They must at least have taken your luggage; I don’t suppose you’ve brought much. Not that I care, however. I believe they’ve given you the same room you had before; when Ralph heard you were coming he said you must have that one.”

“Did he say anything else?”

“Ah, my dear, he doesn’t chatter as he used!” cried Mrs. Touchett as she preceded her niece up the staircase.

It was the same room, and something told Isabel it had not been slept in since she occupied it. Her luggage was there and was not voluminous; Mrs. Touchett sat down a moment with her eyes upon it. “Is there really no hope?” our young woman asked as she stood before her.

“None whatever. There never has been. It has not been a successful life.”

“No⁠—it has only been a beautiful one.” Isabel found herself already contradicting her aunt; she was irritated by her dryness.

“I don’t know what you mean by that; there’s no beauty without health. That is a very odd dress to travel in.”

Isabel glanced at her garment. “I left Rome at an hour’s notice; I took the first that came.”

“Your sisters, in America, wished to know how you dress. That seemed to be their principal interest. I wasn’t able to tell them⁠—but they seemed to have the right idea: that you never wear anything less than black brocade.”

“They think I’m more brilliant than I am; I’m afraid to tell them the truth,” said Isabel. “Lily wrote me you had dined with her.”

“She invited me four times, and I went once. After the second time she should have let me alone. The dinner was very good; it must have been expensive. Her husband has a very bad manner. Did I enjoy my visit to America? Why should I have enjoyed it? I didn’t go for my pleasure.”

These were interesting items, but Mrs. Touchett soon left her niece, whom she was to meet in half an hour at the midday meal. For this repast the two ladies faced each other at an abbreviated table in the melancholy dining-room. Here, after a little, Isabel saw her aunt not to be so dry as she appeared, and her old pity for the poor woman’s inexpressiveness, her want of regret, of disappointment, came back to her. Unmistakeably she would have found it a blessing today to be able to feel a defeat, a mistake, even a shame or two. She wondered if she were not even missing those enrichments of consciousness and privately trying⁠—reaching out for some aftertaste of life, dregs of the banquet; the testimony of pain or the cold recreation of remorse. On the other hand perhaps she was afraid; if she should begin to know remorse at all it might take her too far. Isabel could perceive, however, how it had come over her dimly that she had failed of something, that she saw herself in the future as an old woman without memories. Her little sharp face looked tragical. She told her niece that Ralph had as yet not moved, but that he probably would be able to see her before dinner. And then in a moment she