Page:The Portrait of a Lady (1882).djvu/114

106 106 THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY. Henrietta Stackpole gave a brilliant smile. " I am delighted to hear that ; it proves how much she thinks of him." Ralph appeared to admit that there was a good deal in this, and he surrendered himself to meditation, while his companion watched him askance. " If I should invite Mr. Goodwood," he said, " it would "be to quarrel with him." " Don't do that ; he would prove the better man." " You certainly are doing your best to make me hate him ! I really don't think I can ask him. I should be afraid of being rude to him." " It's just as you please," said Henrietta. " I had no idea you were in love with her yourself." "Do you really believe that ] " the young man asked, with lifted eyebrows. " That's the most natural speech I have ever heard you make ! Of course I believe it," Miss Stackpole answered, ingeniously. " Well," said Ralph, " to prove to you that you are wrong, I will invite him. It must be, of course, as a friend of yours." " It will not be as a friend of mine that he will come ; and it will not be to prove to me that I am wrong that you will ask him but to prove it to yourself ! " These last words of Miss Stackpole's (on which the two pre- sently separated) contained an amount of truth which Ealph Touchett was obliged to recognize ; but it so far took the edge from too sharp a recognition that, in spite of his suspecting that it would be rather more indiscreet to keep his promise than it would be to break it, he wrote Mr. Goodwood a note of sir lines, expressing the pleasure it would give Mr. Touchett the elder that he should join a little party at Gardencourt, of which Miss Stackpole was a valued member. Having sent his letter (to the care of a banker whom Henrietta suggested) he waited in some suspense. He had heard of Mr. Caspar Goodwood by name for the first time ; for when his mother mentioned to him on her arrival that there was a story about the girl's having an " admirer ; ' at home, the idea seemed deficient in reality, and Ralph took no pains to ask questions, the answers to which would suggest only the vague or the disagreeable. Now, how- ever, the native admiration of which his cousin was the object had become more concrete ; it took the form of a young man who had followed her to London; who was interested in a cotton-mill, and had manners in the American style. Ralph had two theories about this young man. Either his passion was a sentimental fiction of Miss Stackpole's (there was always a sort of tacit understanding among women, born of the solidarity of