Chapter 34

One morning, on her return from her drive, some half-hour before luncheon, she quitted her vehicle in the court of the palace and, instead of ascending the great staircase, crossed the court, passed beneath another archway and entered the garden. A sweeter spot at this moment could not have been imagined. The stillness of noontide hung over it, and the warm shade, enclosed and still, made bowers like spacious caves. Ralph was sitting there in a clear gloom, at the base of a statue of Terpsichore—a dancing nymph with taper fingers and inflated draperies in the manner of Bernini; the extreme relaxation of his attitude suggested at first to Isabel that he was asleep. Her light footstep on the grass had not roused him, and before turning away she stood for a moment looking at him. During this instant he opened his eyes; upon which she sat down on a rustic chair that matched with his own. Though in her irritation she had accused him of indifference she was not blind to the fact that he had visibly had something to brood over. But she had explained his air of absence partly by the languor of his increased weakness, partly by worries connected with the property inherited from his father—the fruit of eccentric arrangements of which Mrs Touchett disapproved and which, as she had told Isabel, now encountered opposition from the other partners in the bank. He ought to have gone to England, his mother said, instead of coming to Florence; he had not been there for months, and took no more interest in the bank than in the state of Patagonia.

‘I’m sorry I waked you,’ Isabel said; ‘you look too tired.’

‘I feel too tired. But I was not asleep. I was thinking of you.’

‘Are you tired of that?’

‘Very much so. It leads to nothing. The road’s long and I never arrive.’

‘What do you wish to arrive at?’ she put to him, closing her parasol.

‘At the point of expressing to myself properly what I think of your engagement.’

‘Don’t think too much of it,’ she lightly returned.

‘Do you mean that it’s none of my business?’

‘Beyond a certain point, yes.’

‘That’s the point I want to fix. I had an idea you may have found me wanting in good manners. I’ve never congratulated you.’

‘Of course I’ve noticed that. I wondered why you were silent.’

‘There have been a good many reasons. I’ll tell you now,’ Ralph said. He pulled off his hat and laid it on the ground; then he sat looking at her. He leaned back under the protection of Bernini, his head against his marble pedestal, his arms dropped on either side of him, his hands laid upon the rests of his wide chair. He looked awkward, uncomfortable; he hesitated long. Isabel said nothing; when people were embarrassed she was usually sorry for them, but she was determined not to help Ralph to utter a word that should not be to the honour of her high decision. ‘I think I’ve hardly got over my surprise,’ he went on at last. ‘You were the last person I expected to see caught.’

‘I don’t know why you call it caught.’

‘Because you’re going to be put into a cage.’

‘If I like my cage, that needn’t trouble you,’ she answered.

‘That’s what I wonder at; that’s what I’ve been thinking of.’

‘If you’ve been thinking you may imagine how I’ve thought! I’m satisfied that I’m doing well.’