Page:The Portrait of a Lady (1882).djvu/17

9 THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY. 9 " We hardly know more about her than you ; my mother has not gone into details. She chiefly communicates with us by means of telegrams, and her telegrams are rather inscrutable. They say women don't know how to write tftem, but my mother has thoroughly mastered the art of condensation. ' Tired America, hot weather awful, return England with niece, first steamer, decent cabin.' That's the sort of message we get from her that was the last that came. But there had been another before, which I think contained the lirst mention of the niece. 'Changed hotel, very bad, impudent clerk, address here. Taken sister's girl, died last year, go to Europe, two sisters, quite independent.' Over that my father and I have scarcely stopped puzzling; it seems to admit of so many interpretations." "There is one thing very clear in it," said the old man; " she has given the hotel-clerk a dressing." " I am not sure even of that, since he has driven her from the field. We thought at first that the sister mentioned might be the sister of the clerk ; but the subsequent mention of a niece seems to prove that the allusion is to one of iny aunts. Then there was a question as to whose the two other sisters were ; they are probably two of my late aunt's daughters. But who is ' quite independent,' and in what sense is the term used ? that point is not yet settled. Does the expression apply more particularly to the young lady my mother has adopted, or does it characterise -her sisters equally ] and is it used in a moral or in a financial sense 1 Does it mean that they have been left well off, or that they wish to be under no obligations 1 or does it simply mean that they are fond of their own way 1 " " Whatever else it means, it is pretty sure to mean that," Mr. Touchett remarked. " You will see for yourself," said Lord Warburton. " When does Mrs. Touchett arrive 1 " " We are quite in the dark ; as soon as she can find a decent cabin. She may be waiting for it yet ; on the other hand, she may already have disembarked in England." " In that case she would probably have telegraphed to you." " She never telegraphs when you would expect it only when you don't," said the old man. " She likes to drop on me suddenly ; she thinks she will find me doing something wrong. She has never done so yet, but she is not discouraged." " It's her independence," her son explained, more favourably. "Whatever that of those young ladies' may be, her own is a match for it. She likes to do everything for herself, and has no belief in any one's power to help her. She thinks me of no