THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY. 437 " Ah then," said Caspar, " I am afraid I shall be a fifth wheel tio the coach. Mrs. Osmond has made me promise to go with you." "Good heavens r it's the golden age! You are all too kind." " The kindness on my part is to her ; it's hardly to you." " Granting that, she is kind," said "Ralph, smiling. " To get people to go with you *? Yes, that's a sort of kind- ness," Goodwood answered, without lending himself to the joke. "For myself, however," he added, "I will go so far as to say that I would much rather travel with you and Miss Stackpole than with Miss Stackpole alone."
- ' And you would rather stay here than do either," said Ralph.
" There is really no need of your coming. Henrietta is extra- ordinarily efficient." " I am sure of that. But I have promised Mrs. Osmond." " You can easily get her to let you off." " She wouldn't let me off for the world. She wants me to look after you, but that isn't the principal thing. The principal thing is that she wants me to leave Borne." " Ah, you see too much in it," Ralph suggested. " I bore her," Goodwood went on ; " she has nothing to say to me, so she invented that." " Oh then, if it's a convenience to her, I certainly will take you' with me. Though I don't see why it should be a con- venience," Ralph added in a moment. " Well," said Caspar Goodwood, simply, " she thinks I am watching her." " Watching her ] " " Trying to see whether she's happy." " That's easy to see," said Ralph. " She's the most visibly happy woman I know." "Exactly so; I am satisfied," Goodwood answered, dryly. For all his dryness, however, he had more to say. " I have been watching her ; I was an old friend, and it seemed to me I had the right. She pretends to be happy ; that was what she undertook to be ; and I thought I should like to see for myself what it amounts to. I have seen," he continued, in a strange voice, " and I don't want to see any more. I am now quite ready to go." " Do you know it strikes me as about time you should 1 " Ralph rejoined. And this was the only conversation these gentlemen had about Isabel Osmond.
