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179 THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY. 179 Bantling that he ought to have been an American ; and you ought to see how it pleases him. Whenever I say so, he always breaks out with the same exclamation ' Ah, but really, come now ! ' " A few days later she wrote that she had decided to go to Paris at the end of the week, and that Mr. Bantling had promised to see het off perhaps even he would go as far as Dover with her. She would wait in Paris till Isabel should arrive, Henrietta added ; speaking quite as if Isabel were to start on her Continental journey alone, and making no allusion to Mrs. Touchett. Bearing in mind his interest in their late companion, our heroine communicated several passages from Miss Stackpole's letters to Ralph, who followed with an emo- tion akin to suspense the career of the correspondent of the Interviewer. 11 It seems to me that she is doing very well," he said, " going over to Paris with an ex-guardsman ! If she wants something to write about, she has only to describe that episode." "It is not conventional, certainly," Isabel answered; "but if you mean that as far as Henrietta is concerned it is not perfectly innocent, you are very much mistaken. You will never understand Henrietta." "Excuse me; I understand her perfectly. I didn't at all at first ; but now I have got the point of view. I am afraid, however, that Bantling has not; he may have some surprises. Oh, I understand Henrietta as well as if I had made her I " Isabel was by no means sure of this ; but she abstained from expressing further doubt, for she was disposed in these days to extend a great charity to her cousin. One afternoon, less than a week after Madame Merle's departure, she was seated in the library with a volume to which her attention was not fastened. She had placed herself in a deep window-bench, from which she looked out into the dull, damp park ; and as the library stood at right angles to the entrance-front of the house, shb could see the doctor's dog-cart, which had been waiting for the last two hours before the door. She was struck with the doctor's remaining so long ; but at last she saw him appear in the portico, stand a moment, slowly drawing on his gloves and looking at the knees of his horse, and then get into the vehicle and drive away. Isabel kept her place for half-an-hour ; there was a great stillness in the house. It was so great that when she at last heard a soft, slow step on the deep carpet of the room, she was almost startled by the sound. She turned quickly away from the window, and saw Kalph Touchett standing there, with his hands still in his pockets, but with a N 2