Page:The Portrait of a Lady (1882).djvu/500

492 492 THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY. it was at least a temporary solution to return. She had gone forth in her strength ; she would come back -in her weakness ; and if the place had been a rest to her before, it would bft a positive sanctuary now. She envied Ralph his dying; for if one were thinking of rest, that was the most perfect of all. To cease utterly, to give it all tip and not know anything more this idea was as sweet as the vision of a cool bath in a marble tank, in a darkened chamber, in a hot land. She had moments, indeed, in her journey from Rome, which were almost as good as being dead. She sat in her corner, so motionless, so passive, simply with the sense of being carried, so detached from hope and regret, that if her spirit was haunted with sudden pictures, it might have been the spirit disembarrassed of the flesh. There was nothing to regret now that was all over. !N"ot only the time of her folly, but the time of her repentance seemed far away. The only thing to regret was that Madame Merle had been so so strange. Just here Isabel's imagination paused, from literal inability to say what it was that Madame Merle had been. Whatever it was, it was for Madame Merle herself to regret it ; and doubtless she would do so in America, where she was going. It concerned Isabel no more ; she only had an im- pression that she should never again see Madame Merle. This impression carried her into the future, of which from time to time she had a mutilated glimpse. She saw herself, in the distant years, still in the attitude of a woman who had her- life to live, and these intimations contradicted the spirit of the present hour. It might be desirable to die;. but this privilege was evidently to be denied her. Deep in her soul deeper than any appetite for renunciation was the sense that life would be her business for a long time to come. And at moments there was something inspiring, almost exhilarating, in the conviction. It was a proof of strength it was a proof that she should some day be happy again. It couldn't be that she was to live only to suffer ; she was still young, after all, and a great many things might happen to her yet. To live only to suffer only to feel the injury of life repeated and enlarged it seemed to her that she was too valuable, too capable, for that. Then she wondered whether it were vain and stupid to think so well of herself. "When had it ever been a guarantee to be valuable 1 Was not all history full of the destruction of precious things 1 Was it not much more probable that if one were delicate one would suffer ? It involved then, perhaps, an admission that one had a certain grossness ; but Isabel recognised, as it passed before her eyes, the quick, vague shadow of a long future. She should not