Page:The Portrait of a Lady (1882).djvu/25

17 THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY. 17 leaving her husband in England to take care of his bank. This arrangement greatly pleased her ; it was so extremely definite. It struck her husband in the same light, in a foggy square in London, where it was at times the most definite fact he discerned ; but he would have preferred that discomfort should have a greater vagueness. To agree to disagree had cost him an effort ; he was ready to agree to almost anything but that, and saw no reason why either assent or dissent should be so terribly consist- ent. Mrs. Touchett indulged in no regrets nor speculations, and usually came once a year to spend a month with her hus- band, a period during which she apparently took pains to con- vince him that she had adopted the right system. She was not fond of England, and had three or four reasons for it to which she currently alluded ; they bore upon minor points of British civilisation, but for Mrs. Touchett they amply justified non- residence. She detested bread-sauce, which, as she said, looked like a poultice and tasted like soap ; she objected to the con- sumption of beer by her maid-servants ; and she affirmed that the British laundress (Mrs. Touchett was very particular about the appearance of her linen) was not a mistress of her art. At fixed intervals she paid a visit to her own country; but this last one had been longer than any of its predecessors. She had taken up her niece there was little doubt of that. One wet afternoon, some four months earlier than the occurrence lately narrated, this young lady had been seated alone with a book. To say that she had a book is to say that her solitude did not press upon her ; for her love of knowledge had a fertilising quality and her imagination was strong. There was at this time, however, a want of lightness in her situation, which the arrival of an unexpected visitor did much to dispel. The visitor had not been announced; the girl heard her at last walking about the adjoining room. It was an old house at Albany a large, square, double house, with a notice of sale in the windows of the parlour. There were two entrances, one of which had long been out of use, but had never been removed. They were exactly alike large white doors, with an arched frame and wide side- lights, perched upon little " stoops " of red stone, which descended sidewise to the brick pavement of the street. The two houses together formed a single dwelling, the party-wall having been removed and the rooms placed in communication. These rooms, above-stairs, were extremely numerous, and were painted all over exactly alike, in a yellowish white which had grown sallow with time. On the third floor there was a sort of arched passage, connecting the two sides of the house, which Isabel and her a