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342 342 THE POBTRAIT OF A LADY. matter as a person whose present happiness had nothing to grudge to Henrietta's violated conscience. Osmond thought their alliance a kind of monstrosity ; he couldn't imagine what they had in common. For him, Mr. Bantling's fellow-tourist was simply the most vulgar of women, and he also pronounced her the most abandoned. Against" this latter clause of the verdict Isabel protested with an ardour which made him wonder afresh at the oddity of some of his wife's tastes. Isabel could explain it only by saying that she liked to know people who were as different as possible from herself. " Why then don't you make the acquaintance of your washerwoman 1 " Osmond had inquired ; to which Isabel answered that she was afraid her washerwoman wouldn't care for her. Now Henrietta cared so much. Ralph saw nothing of her for the greater part of the two years that followed her marriage ; the winter that formed the beginning of her residence in Eome he spent again at San Remo, where he was joined in the spring by his mother, who afterwards went with him to England, to see what they were doing at the bank an operation she could not induce him to perform. Ralph had taken a lease of his house at San Remo, a small villa, which he occupied still another winter ; but late in the month of April of this second year he came down to Rome. It was the first time since her marriage that he had stood face to face with Isabel 1 ; his desire to see her again was of the keenest. She had written to him from time to time, but her letters told him nothing that he wanted to know. He had asked his mother what she was making of her life, and his mother had simply answered that she supposed she was making the best of it. Mrs. Touchett had not the imagination that communes with the unseen, and she now pretended to no intimacy with her niece, whom she rarely encountered. This young woman appeared to be living in a sufficiently honourable way, but Mrs. Touchett still remained of the opinion that her marriage was a shabby affair. It gave her no pleasure to think of Isabel's establishment, which she was sure was a very lame business. From time to time, in Florence, she rubbed against the Countess Gemini, doing her best, always, to minimise the contact ; and the Countess reminded her of Osmond, who made her think of Isabel. The Countess was less talked about in these days ; but Mrs. Touchett augured no good of that ; it only proved how she had been talked about before. There was a more direct suggestion of Isabel in the person of Madame Merle ; but Madame Merle's relations with Mrs. Touchett had undergone a perceptible change. Isabel's aunt