Henrietta showed no signs of breaking down. Her prospects had brightened on her leaving England, and she was now in the full enjoyment of her copious resources. She had indeed been obliged to sacrifice her hopes with regard to the inner life; the social question, on the Continent, bristled with difficulties even more numerous than those she had encountered in England. But on the Continent there was the outer life, which was palpable and visible at every turn, and more easily convertible to literary uses than the customs of those opaque islanders. Out of doors in foreign lands, as she ingeniously remarked, one seemed to see the right side of the tapestry; out of doors in England one seemed to see the wrong side, which gave one no notion of the figure. The admission costs her historian a pang, but Henrietta, despairing of more occult things, was now paying much attention to the outer life. She had been studying it for two months at Venice, from which city she sent to the Interviewer a conscientious account of the gondolas, the Piazza, the Bridge of Sighs, the pigeons and the young boatman who chanted Tasso. The Interviewer was perhaps disappointed, but Henrietta was at least seeing Europe. Her present purpose was to get down to Rome before the malaria should come on — she apparently supposed that it began on a fixed day; and with this design she was to spend at present but few days in Florence. Mr. Bantling was to go with her to Rome, and she pointed out to Isabel that as he had been there before, as he was a military man and as he had had a classical education — he had been bred at Eton, where they study nothing but Latin and Whyte-Melville, said Miss Stackpole — he would be a most useful companion in the city of the Caesars. At this juncture Ralph had the happy idea of proposing to Isabel that she also, under his own escort, should make a pilgrimage to Rome. She expected to pass a portion of the next winter there — that was very well; but meantime there was no harm in surveying the field. There were ten days left of the beautiful month of May — the most precious month of all to the true Rome-lover. Isabel would become a Rome-lover; that was a foregone conclusion. She was provided with a trusty companion of her own sex, whose society, thanks to the fact of other calls on this lady’s attention, would probably not be oppressive. Madame Merle would remain with Mrs. Touchett; she had left Rome for the summer and wouldn’t care to return. She professed herself delighted to be left at peace in Florence; she had locked up her apartment and sent her cook home to Palestrina. She urged Isabel, however, to assent to Ralph’s proposal, and assured her that a good introduction to Rome was not a thing to be despised. Isabel in truth needed no urging, and the party of four arranged its little journey. Mrs. Touchett, on this occasion, had resigned herself to the absence of a duenna; we have seen that she now inclined to the belief that her niece should stand alone. One of Isabel’s preparations consisted of her seeing Gilbert Osmond before she started and mentioning her intention to him.
“I should like to be in Rome with you,” he commented. “I should like to see you on that wonderful ground.”
She scarcely faltered. “You might come then.”
“But you’ll have a lot of people with you.”
“Ah,” Isabel admitted, “of course I shall not be alone.”
For a moment he said nothing more. “You’ll like it,” he went on at last. “They’ve spoiled it, but you’ll rave about it.”
“Ought I to dislike it because, poor old dear — the Niobe of Nations, you know — it has been spoiled?” she asked.
“No, I think not. It has been spoiled so often,” he smiled. “If I were to go, what should I do with my little girl?”
“Can’t you leave her at the villa?”
“I don’t know that I like that — though there’s a very good old woman who looks after her. I can’t afford a governess.”
“Bring her with you then,” said Isabel promptly.
Mr. Osmond looked grave. “She has been in Rome all winter, at her convent; and she’s too young to make journeys of pleasure.”
“You don’t like bringing her forward?” Isabel enquired.
“No, I think young girls should be kept out of the world.”
“I was brought up on a different system.”
“You? Oh, with you it succeeded, because you — you were exceptional.”
“I don’t see why,” said Isabel, who, however, was not sure there was not some truth in the speech.
Mr. Osmond didn’t explain; he simply went on: “If I thought it would make her resemble you to join a social group in Rome I’d take her there to-morrow.”
“Don’t make her resemble me,” said Isabel. “Keep her like herself.”
“I might send her to my sister,” Mr. Osmond observed. He had almost the air of asking advice; he seemed to like to talk over his domestic matters with Miss Archer.
“Yes,” she concurred; “I think that wouldn’t do much towards making her resemble me!”
After she had left Florence Gilbert Osmond met Madame Merle at the Countess Gemini’s. There were other people present; the Countess’s drawing-room was usually well filled, and the talk had been general, but after a while Osmond left his place and came and sat on an ottoman half-behind, half-beside Madame Merle’s chair. “She wants me to go to Rome with her,” he remarked in a low voice.
“To go with her?”
“To be there while she’s there. She proposed it.
“I suppose you mean that you proposed it and she assented.”
“Of course I gave her a chance. But she’s encouraging — she’s very encouraging.”
“I rejoice to hear it — but don’t cry victory too soon. Of course you’ll go to Rome.”
“Ah,” said Osmond, “it makes one work, this idea of yours!”
“Don’t pretend you don’t enjoy it — you’re very ungrateful. You’ve not been so well occupied these many years.”
“The way you take it’s beautiful,” said Osmond. “I ought to be grateful for that.”
“Not too much so, however,” Madame Merle answered. She talked with her usual smile, leaning back in her chair and looking round the room. “You’ve made a very good impression, and I’ve seen for myself that you’ve received one. You’ve not come to Mrs. Touchett’s seven times to oblige me.”
“The girl’s not disagreeable,” Osmond quietly conceded.
Madame Merle dropped her eye on him a moment, during which her lips closed with a certain firmness. “Is that all you can find to say about that fine creature?”
“All? Isn’t it enough? Of how many people have you heard me say more?”
She made no answer to this, but still presented her talkative grace to the room. “You’re unfathomable,” she murmured at last. “I’m frightened at the abyss into which I shall have cast her.”
He took it almost gaily. “You can’t draw back — you’ve gone too far.”
“Very good; but you must do the rest yourself.”
“I shall do it,” said Gilbert Osmond.