DEAR LORD WARBURTON — A great deal of earnest thought has not led me to change my mind about the suggestion you were so kind as to make me the other day. I am not, I am really and truly not, able to regard you in the light of a companion for life; or to think of your home — your various homes — as the settled seat of my existence. These things cannot be reasoned about, and I very earnestly entreat you not to return to the subject we discussed so exhaustively. We see our lives from our own point of view; that is the privilege of the weakest and humblest of us; and I shall never be able to see mine in the manner you proposed. Kindly let this suffice you, and do me the justice to believe that I have given your proposal the deeply respectful consideration it deserves. It is with this very great regard that I remain sincerely yours,

ISABEL ARCHER

“You’ve answered my question,’ he said at last. “‘You’ve told me what I wanted. I’m greatly obliged to you.’

‘It seems to me I’ve told you very little.’

“You’ve told me the great thing: that the world interests you and that you want to throw yourself into it.’

Her silvery eyes shone a moment in the dusk. ‘I never said that.’

‘I think you meant it. Don’t repudiate it. It’s so fine!’

‘I don’t know what you’re trying to fasten upon me, for I’m not in the least an adventurous spirit. Women are not like men.’

Ralph slowly rose from his seat and they walked together to the gate of the square. ‘No,’ he said; ‘women rarely boast of their courage. Men do so with a certain frequency.’

“Men have it to boast of!’

‘Women have it too. You’ve a great deal.’

‘And what shall I gain by that?’ her friend asked with no sign of wincing.

“You'll have obliged me greatly.’

‘And what will be my reward?’

‘Do you need a reward for an act of generosity?’

‘Yes, when it involves a great sacrifice.’

“There’s no generosity without some sacrifice. Men don’t understand such things. If you make the sacrifice you’ll have all my admiration.’

‘I don’t care a cent for your admiration — not one straw, with nothing to show for it. When will you marry me? That’s the only question.’

‘Never — if you go on making me feel only as I feel at present.’

‘What do I gain then by not trying to make you feel otherwise?’

“You'll gain quite as much as by worrying me to death!’

The lady played in the same manner as before, softly and
solemnly, and while she played the shadows deepened in the
room. The autumn twilight gathered in, and from her place
Isabel could see the rain, which had now begun in earnest,
washing the cold-looking lawn and the wind shaking the great
trees. At last, when the music had ceased, her companion got
up and, coming nearer with a smile, before Isabel had time to
thank her again, said: ‘I’m very glad you’ve come back; I’ve
heard a great deal about you.’

‘Well,’ the old man observed with wandering irrelevance, ‘it can’t be said that my death will make much difference in your mother’s life.’

‘It will probably make more than you think.’

‘Well, she’ll have more money,’ said Mr Touchett. ‘I’ve left her a good wife’s portion, just as if she had been a good wife.’

‘She has been one, daddy, according to her own theory. She has never troubled you.’

‘Ah, some troubles are pleasant,’ Mr Touchett murmured. “Those you’ve given me for instance. But your mother has been less — less — what shall I call it? less out of the way since I’ve been ill. I presume she knows I’ve noticed it.’

‘I shall certainly tell her so; I’m so glad you mention it.’

‘It won’t make any difference to her; she doesn’t do it to please me. She does it to please — to please —’ And he lay a while trying to think why she did it. ‘She does it because it suits her. But that’s not what I want to talk about,’ he added. ‘It’s about you. You'll be very well off.'

‘I hope not indeed,’ said Isabel, who added something about his being the kindest creature living. She remembered, however, that on her first asking him about Madame Merle he had answered her in a manner which this lady might have thought injurious without being explicit. There was something between them, Isabel said to herself, but she said nothing more than this. If it were something of importance it should inspire respect; if it were not it was not worth her curiosity. With all her love of knowledge she had a natural shrinking from raising curtains and looking into unlighted corners. The love of knowledge coexisted in her mind with the finest capacity for ignorance.

But Madame Merle sometimes said things that startled her, made her raise her clear eyebrows at the time and think of the words afterwards. ‘I'd give a great deal to be your age again,’ she broke out once with a bitterness which, though diluted in her customary amplitude of ease, was imperfectly disguised by it. ‘If I could only begin again — if I could have my life before me!’

‘Your life’s before you yet,’ Isabel answered gently, for she was vaguely awe-struck.

“No; the best part’s gone, and gone for nothing.’

‘Surely not for nothing,’ said Isabel.

“Why not — what have I got? Neither husband, nor child, nor fortune, nor position, nor the traces of a beauty that I never had.’

“You have many friends, dear lady.’

‘I’m not so sure!’ cried Madame Merle.

“Ah, you’re wrong. You have memories, graces, talents —’

But Madame Merle interrupted her. ‘What have my talents brought me? Nothing but the need of using them still, to get through the hours, the years, to cheat myself with some pretence of movement, of unconsciousness. As for my graces and memories the less said about them the better. You’ll be my friend till you find a better use for your friendship.’

“What has he? An ugly brick house in Fortieth Street? Don’t tell me that; I refuse to recognise that as an ideal.’

‘I don’t care anything about his house,’ said Isabel.

“That’s very crude of you. When you’ve lived as long as I you'll see that every human being has his shell and that you must take the shell into account. By the shell I mean the whole envelope of circumstances. There’s no such thing as an isolated man or woman; we’re each of us made up of some cluster of appurtenances. What shall we call our “self?? Where does it begin? where does it end? It overflows into everything that belongs to us — and then it flows back again. I know a large part of myself is in the clothes I choose to wear. I’ve a great respect for things! One’s self — for other people — is one’s expression of one’s self; and one’s house, one’s furniture, one’s garments, the books one reads, the company one keeps — these things are all expressive.’

“You’ve plenty of time,’ she had said to Isabel in return for
the mutilated confidences which our young woman made her
and which didn’t pretend to be perfect, though we have seen
that at moments the girl had compunctions at having said so
much. ‘I’m glad you’ve done nothing yet — that you have it
still to do. It’s a very good thing for a girl to have refused a few
good offers — so long of course as they are not the best she’s
likely to have. Pardon me if my tone seems horribly corrupt;
one must take the worldly view sometimes. Only don’t keep
on refusing for the sake of refusing. It’s a pleasant exercise of
power; but accepting’s after all an exercise of power as well.
There’s always the danger of refusing once too often. It
was not the one I fell into — I didn’t refuse often enough.
You’re an exquisite creature and I should like to see you
married to a prime minister. But speaking strictly, you
know, you’re not what is technically called a parti. You’re
extremely good-looking and extremely clever; in yourself
you’re quite exceptional. You appear to have the vaguest
ideas about your earthly possessions; but from what I can
make out you’re not embarrassed with an income. I wish you
had a little money.’

By way of answer Isabel kissed her, and, though some
women kiss with facility, there are kisses and kisses, and this
embrace was satisfactory to Madame Merle. Our young lady,
after this, was much alone; she saw her aunt and cousin only
at meals, and discovered that of the hours during which Mrs
Touchett was invisible only a minor portion was now devoted
to nursing her husband. She spent the rest in her own apart-
ments, to which access was not allowed even to her niece,
apparently occupied there with mysterious and inscrutable
exercises. At table she was grave and silent; but her solemnity
was not an attitude — Isabel could see it was a conviction. She
wondered if her aunt repented of having taken her own
way so much; but there was no visible evidence of this — no
tears, no sighs, no exaggeration of a zeal always to its own
sense adequate. Mrs Touchett seemed simply to feel the
need of thinking things over and summing them up; she had
a little moral account-book — with columns unerringly ruled
and a sharp steel clasp — which she kept with exemplary neat-
ness. Uttered reflection had with her ever, at any rate, a prac-
tical ring. ‘If I had foreseen this I’'d not have proposed your
coming abroad now,’ she said to Isabel after Madame Merle
had left the house. ‘I’d have waited and sent for you next
year.’