Page:The Portrait of a Lady (1882).djvu/401

393 THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY. 393 herself when it would begin ; not that she cared much ; but she wondered what kept it in abeyance. Her sister-in-law regarded her with none but level glances, and expressed for the poor Countess as little contempt as admiration. In reality, Isabel would as soon have thought of despising her as of passing a moral judgment on a grasshopper. She was not indifferent to her husband's sister, however ; she was rather a little afraid of her. She wondered at her ; she thought her very extraordinary. The Countess seemed to her to have no soul ; she was like a bright shell, with a polished surface, in which spmething would rattle when you shook it. This rattle was apparently the Countess's spiritual principle ; a little loose nut that tumbled about inside of her. She was too odd for disdain, too anomalous for com- parisons. Isabel would have invited her again (there was no question of inviting the Count); but Osmond, after his marriage, had not scrupled to say frankly that Amy was a fool of the worst species a fool whose folly had the irrepressibility of genius. He said at another time that she had no heart ; and he added in a moment tha^ she had given it all away in small pieces, like a wedding-cake. The fact of not having been asked was of course another obstacle to the Countess's going again to Rome ; but at the period with which this history has now to deal, she was in receipt of an invitation to spend several weeks at the Palazzo Roccanera. The proposal had come from Osmond himself, who wrote to his sister that she must be prepared to be very quiet. Whether or no she found in this phrase all the meaning he had put into it, I am unable to say ; but she accepted the invitation on any terms. She was curious, moreover; for one of the impressions of her former visit had been that her brother had found his match. Before the marriage she had been sorry for Isabel, so sorry as to have had serious thoughts if any of the Countess's thoughts were serious of putting her on her guard. But she had let that pass, and after a little she was reassured. Osmond was as lofty as ever, but his wife would not be an easy victim. The Countess was not very exact at measurements ; but it seemed to her that if Isabel should draw herself up she would be the taller spirit of the two. What she wanted to learn now was whether Isabel had drawn herself up ; it would give her immense pleasure to see Osmond overtopped. Several days before she was to start for Rome a servant brought her the card of a visitor a card with the simple super- scription, " Henrietta C. Stackpole." The Countess pressed her finger-tips to her forehead ; she did not remember to have known any such Henrietta as that. The servant then remarked that