"Are you thinking of proposing to me?""By no means. From the point of view I speak of that would be fatal; I should kill the goose thatsupplies me with the material of my inimitable omelettes. I use that animal as the symbol of myinsane illusions. What I mean is that I shall have the thrill of seeing what a young lady does whowon't marry Lord Warburton.""That's what your mother counts upon too," said Isabel."Ah, there will be plenty of spectators! We shall hang on the rest of your career. I shall not see allof it, but I shall probably see the most interesting years. Of course if you were to marry our friendyou'd still have a career--a very decent, in fact a very brilliant one. But relatively speaking it wouldbe a little prosaic. It would be definitely marked out in advance; it would be wanting in theunexpected. You know I'm extremely fond of the unexpected, and now that you've kept the gamein your hands I depend on your giving us some grand example of it.""I don't understand you very well," said Isabel, "but I do so well enough to be able to say that ifyou look for grand examples of anything from me I shall disappoint you.""You'll do so only by disappointing yourself and that will go hard with you!"To this she made no direct reply; there was an amount of truth in it that would bear consideration.At last she said abruptly: "I don't see what harm there is in my wishing not to tie myself. I don'twant to begin life by marrying. There are other things a woman can do."第 104 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网"There's nothing she can do so well. But you're of course so many-sided.""If one's two-sided it's enough," said Isabel."You're the most charming of polygons!" her companion broke out. At a glance from hiscompanion, however, he became grave, and to prove it went on: "You want to see life--you'll behanged if you don't, as the young men say.""I don't think I want to see it as the young men want to see it. But I do want to look about me.""You want to drain the cup of experience.""No, I don't wish to touch the cup of experience. It's a poisoned drink! I only want to see formyself.""You want to see, but not to feel," Ralph remarked."I don't think that if one's a sentient being one can make the distinction. I'm a good deal likeHenrietta. The other day when I asked her if she wished to marry she said: 'Not till I've seenEurope!' I too don't wish to marry till I've seen Europe.""You evidently expect a crowned head will be struck with you.""No, that would be worse than marrying Lord Warburton. But it's getting very dark," Isabelcontinued, "and I must go home." She rose from her place, but Ralph only sat still and looked ather. As he remained there she stopped, and they exchanged a gaze that was full on either side, butespecially on Ralph's, of utterances too vague for words."You've answered my question," he said at last. "You've told me what I wanted. I'm greatlyobliged 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 yourselfinto it."Her silvery eyes shone a moment in the dusk. "I never said that." "I think you meant it. Don'trepudiate 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.""Enough to go home in a cab to Pratt's Hotel, but not more."Ralph unlocked the gate, and after they had passed out he fastened it. "We'll find your cab," hesaid; and as they turned toward a neighbouring street in which this quest might avail he asked heragain if he mightn't see her safely to the inn."By no means," she answered; "you're very tired; you must go home and go to bed."The cab was found, and he helped her into it, standing a moment at the door. "When people forgetI'm a poor creature I'm often incommoded," he said. "But it's worse when they remember it!"第 105 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网CHAPTER XVIShe had had no hidden motive in wishing him not to take her home; it simply struck her that forsome days past she had consumed an inordinate quantity of his time, and the independent spirit ofthe American girl whom extravagance of aid places in an attitude that she ends by finding"affected" had made her decide that for these few hours she must suffice to herself. She hadmoreover a great fondness for intervals of solitude, which since her arrival in England had beenbut meagrely met. It was a luxury she could always command at home and she had wittinglymissed it. That evening, however, an incident occurred which--had there been a critic to note it-wouldhave taken all colour from the theory that the wish to be quite by herself had caused her todispense with her cousin's attendance. Seated toward nine o'clock in the dim illumination of Pratt'sHotel and trying with the aid of two tall candles to lose herself in a volume she had brought fromGardencourt, she succeeded only to the extent of reading other words than those printed on thepage--words that Ralph had spoken to her that afternoon. Suddenly the well-muffed knuckle of thewaiter was applied to the door, which presently gave way to his exhibition, even as a glorioustrophy, of the card of a visitor. When this memento had offered to her fixed sight the name of Mr.Caspar Goodwood she let the man stand before her without signifying her wishes."Shall I show the gentleman up, ma'am?" he asked with a slightly encouraging inflexion.Isabel hesitated still and while she hesitated glanced at the mirror. "He may come in," she said atlast; and waited for him not so much smoothing her hair as girding her spirit.Caspar Goodwood was accordingly the next moment shaking hands with her, but saying nothingtill the servant had left the room. "Why didn't you answer my letter?" he then asked in a quick, full,slightly peremptory tone--the tone of a man whose questions were habitually pointed and who wascapable of much insistence.She answered by a ready question, "How did you know I was here?""Miss Stackpole let me know," said Caspar Goodwood. "She told me you would probably be athome alone this evening and would be willing to see me.""Where did she see you--to tell you that?""She didn't see me; she wrote to me."Isabel was silent; neither had sat down; they stood there with an air of defiance, or at least ofcontention. "Henrietta never told me she was writing to you," she said at last. "This is not kind ofher.""Is it so disagreeable to you to see me?" asked the young man."I didn't expect it. I don't like such surprises.""But you knew I was in town; it was natural we should meet.""Do you call this meeting? I hoped I shouldn't see you. In so big a place as London it seemed verypossible.""It was apparently repugnant to you even to write to me," her visitor went on.第 106 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网Isabel made no reply; the sense of Henrietta Stackpole's treachery, as she momentarily qualified it,was strong within her. "Henrietta's certainly not a model of all the delicacies!" she exclaimed withbitterness. "It was a great liberty to take.""I suppose I'm not a model either--of those virtues or of any others. The fault's mine as much ashers."As Isabel looked at him it seemed to her that his jaw had never been more square. This might havedispleased her, but she took a different turn. "No, it's not your fault so much as hers. What you'vedone was inevitable, I suppose, for you.""It was indeed!" cried Caspar Goodwood with a voluntary laugh."And now that I've come, at any rate, mayn't I stay?""You may sit down, certainly."She went back to her chair again, while her visitor took the first place that offered, in the mannerof a man accustomed to pay little thought to that sort of furtherance. "I've been hoping every dayfor an answer to my letter. You might have written me a few lines.""It wasn't the trouble of writing that prevented me; I could as easily have written you four pages asone. But my silence was an intention," Isabel said. "I thought it the best thing."He sat with his eyes fixed on hers while she spoke; then he lowered them and attached them to aspot in the carpet as if he were making a strong effort to say nothing but what he ought. He was astrong man in the wrong, and he was acute enough to see that an uncompromising exhibition of hisstrength would only throw the falsity of his position into relief. Isabel was not incapable of tastingany advantage of position over a person of this quality, and though little desirous to flaunt it in hisface she could enjoy being able to say "You know you oughtn't to have written to me yourself!"and to say it with an air of triumph.Caspar Goodwood raised his eyes to her own again; they seemed to shine through the vizard of ahelmet. He had a strong sense of justice and was ready any day in the year--over and above this-toargue the question of his rights. "You said you hoped never to hear from me again; I know that.But I never accepted any such rule as my own. I warned you that you should hear very soon.""I didn't say I hoped NEVER to hear from you," said Isabel."Not for five years then; for ten years; twenty years. It's the same thing.""Do you find it so? It seems to me there's a great difference. I can imagine that at the end of tenyears we might have a very pleasant correspondence. I shall have matured my epistolary style."She looked away while she spoke these words, knowing them of so much less earnest a cast thanthe countenance of her listener. Her eyes, however, at last came back to him, just as he said veryirrelevantly; "Are you enjoying your visit to your uncle?""Very much indeed." She dropped, but then she broke out. "What good do you expect to get byinsisting?""The good of not losing you.""You've no right to talk of losing what's not yours. And even from your own point of view," Isabeladded, "you ought to know when to let one alone."第 107 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网"I disgust you very much," said Caspar Goodwood gloomily; not as if to provoke her tocompassion for a man conscious of this blighting fact, but as if to set it well before himself, so thathe might endeavour to act with his eyes on it."Yes, you don't at all delight me, you don't fit in, not in any way, just now, and the worst is thatyour putting it to the proof in this manner is quite unnecessary." It wasn't certainly as if his naturehad been soft, so that pin-pricks would draw blood from it; and from the first of her acquaintancewith him, and of her having to defend herself against a certain air that he had of knowing betterwhat was good for her than she knew herself, she had recognised the fact that perfect franknesswas her best weapon. To attempt to spare his sensibility or to escape from him edgewise, as onemight do from a man who had barred the way less sturdily--this, in dealing with CasparGoodwood, who would grasp at everything of every sort that one might give him, was wastedagility. It was not that he had not susceptibilities, but his passive surface, as well as his active, waslarge and hard, and he might always be trusted to dress his wounds, so far as they required it,himself. She came back, even for her measure of possible pangs and aches in him, to her old sensethat he was naturally plated and steeled, armed essentially for aggression."I can't reconcile myself to that," he simply said. There was a dangerous liberality about it; for shefelt how open it was to him to make the point that he had not always disgusted her."I can't reconcile myself to it either, and it's not the state of things that ought to exist between us. Ifyou'd only try to banish me from your mind for a few months we should be on good terms again.""I see. If I should cease to think of you at all for a prescribed time, I should find I could keep it upindefinitely.""Indefinitely is more than I ask. It's more even than I should like.""You know that what you ask is impossible," said the young man, taking his adjective for grantedin a manner she found irritating."Aren't you capable of making a calculated effort?" she demanded. "You're strong for everythingelse; why shouldn't you be strong for that?""An effort calculated for what?" And then as she hung fire, "I'm capable of nothing with regard toyou," he went on, "but just of being infernally in love with you. If one's strong one loves only themore strongly.""There's a good deal in that;" and indeed our young lady felt the force of it--felt it thrown off, intothe vast of truth and poetry, as practically a bait to her imagination. But she promptly came round."Think of me or not, as you find most possible; only leave me alone.""Until when?""Well, for a year or two.""Which do you mean? Between one year and two there's all the difference in the world.""Call it two then," said Isabel with a studied effect of eagerness."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?"第 108 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网"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 thesacrifice 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 youmarry 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!" Caspar Goodwood bent his eyes againand gazed a while into the crown of his hat. A deep flush overspread his face; she could see hersharpness had at last penetrated. This immediately had a value --classic, romantic, redeeming, whatdid she know? for her; "the strong man in pain" was one of the categories of the human appeal,little charm as he might exert in the given case. "Why do you make me say such things to you?"she cried in a trembling voice. "I only want to be gentle--to be thoroughly kind. It's not delightfulto me to feel people care for me and yet to have to try and reason them out of it. I think others alsoought to be considerate; we have each to judge for ourselves. I know you're considerate, as muchas you can be; you've good reasons for what you do. But I really don't want to marry, or to talkabout it at all now. I shall probably never do it--no, never. I've a perfect right to feel that way, andit's no kindness to a woman to press her so hard, to urge her against her will. If I give you pain Ican only say I'm very sorry. It's not my fault; I can't marry you simply to please you. I won't saythat I shall always remain your friend, because when women say that, in these situations, it passes,I believe, for a sort of mockery. But try me some day."Caspar Goodwood, during this speech, had kept his eyes fixed upon the name of his hatter, and itwas not until some time after she had ceased speaking that he raised them. When he did so thesight of a rosy, lovely eagerness in Isabel's face threw some confusion into his attempt to analyseher words. "I'll go home--I'll go to-morrow--I'll leave you alone," he brought out at last. "Only," heheavily said, "I hate to lose sight of you!""Never fear. I shall do no harm.""You'll marry some one else, as sure as I sit here," Caspar Goodwood declared."Do you think that a generous charge?""Why not? Plenty of men will try to make you.""I told you just now that I don't wish to marry and that I almost certainly never shall.""I know you did, and I like your 'almost certainly'! I put no faith in what you say.""Thank you very much. Do you accuse me of lying to shake you off? You say very delicatethings.""Why should I not say that? You've given me no pledge of anything at all.""No, that's all that would be wanting!""You may perhaps even believe you're safe--from wishing to be. But you're not," the young manwent on as if preparing himself for the worst.第 109 页 共 391 页原版英语阅读网"Very well then. We'll put it that I'm not safe. Have it as you please.""I don't know, however," said Caspar Goodwood, "that my keeping you in sight would prevent it.""Don't you indeed? I'm after all very much afraid of you. Do you think I'm so very easily pleased?"she asked suddenly, changing her tone."No--I don't; I shall try to console myself with that. But there are a certain number of very dazzlingmen in the world, no doubt; and if there were only one it would be enough. The most dazzling ofall will make straight for you. You'll be sure to take no one who isn't dazzling.""If you mean by dazzling brilliantly clever," Isabel said--"and I can't imagine what else you mean-I don't need the aid of a clever man to teach me how to live. I can find it out for myself.""Find out how to live alone? I wish that, when you have, you'd teach me!"She looked at him a moment; then with a quick smile, "Oh, you ought to marry!" she said.He might be pardoned if for an instant this exclamation seemed to him to sound the infernal note,and it is not on record that her motive for discharging such a shaft had been of the clearest. Heoughtn't to stride about lean and hungry, however--she certainly felt THAT for him. "God forgiveyou!" he murmured between his teeth as he turned away.Her accent had put her slightly in the wrong, and after a moment she felt the need to right herself.The easiest way to do it was to place him where she had been. "You do me great injustice--you saywhat you don't know!" she broke out. "I shouldn't be an easy victim--I've proved it.""Oh, to me, perfectly.""I've proved it to others as well." And she paused a moment. "I refused a proposal of marriage lastweek; what they call--no doubt--a dazzling one.""I'm very glad to hear it," said the young man gravely."It was a proposal many girls would have accepted; it had everything to recommend it." Isabel hadnot proposed to herself to tell this story, but, now she had begun, the satisfaction of speaking it outand doing herself justice took possession of her. "I was offered a great position and a greatfortune--by a person whom I like extremely."