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297 THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY. 297 he might at least go through the form. We who know more about poor Ralph than his cousin, may easily helieve that during the hours that followed his' arrival at the Palazzo Crescentini, he had privately gone through many forms. His mother had literally greeted him with the great news, which was even more sensibly chilling than Mrs. Touchett's maternal kiss. Ralph was shocked and humiliated ; his calculations had been false, and his cousin was lost. He drifted about the house like a rudderless vessel in a rocky stream, or sat in the garden of the palace in a great cane chair, with his long legs extended, his head thrown back, and his hat pulled over his eyes. He felt cold about the heart ; he had never liked anything less. What could he do, what could he say ] If Isabel were irreclaimable, could he pretend to like it 1 To attempt to reclaim her was permissible only if the attempt should succeed. To try to per- suade her that the man to whom she had pledged her faith was a humbug would be decently discreet only in the event of her being persuaded. Otherwise he should simply have damned himself. It cost him an equal effort to speak his thought and to dissemble ; he could neither assent with sincerity nor protest with hope. Meanwhile he knew or rather he supposed that the affianced pair were daily renewing their mutual vows. Osmond, at this moment, showed himself little at the Palazzo Crescentini; but Isabel met him every day elsewhere, as she was free to do after their engagement had been made public. She had taken a carriage by the month, so as not to be indebted to her aunt for the means of pursuing a course of which Mrs. Touchett disapproved, and she drove in the morning to the Cascine. This suburban wilderness, during the early hours, was void of all intruders, and our young lady, joined by her lover in its quietest part, strolled with him a while in the grey Italian shade and listened to the nightingales. XXXIV. 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 ; the warm shade was motionless, and the hot light made it pleasant. Ralph was