Page:The Portrait of a Lady (London, Macmillan & Co., 1881) Volume 1.djvu/211

 "But you knew I was in town; it was natural we should meet."

"Do you call this meeting? I hoped I should not see you. In so large a place as London it seemed to me very possible."

"Apparently it was disagreeable to you even to write to me," said Mr. Goodwood. Isabel made no answer to this; the sense of Henrietta Stackpole's treachery, as she momentarily qualified it, was strong within her.

"Henrietta is not delicate!" she exclaimed with a certain bitterness. "It was a great liberty to take."

"I suppose I am not delicate either. The fault is mine as much as hers."

As Isabel looked at him it seemed to her that his jaw had never been more square. This might have displeased her; nevertheless she rejoined inconsequently—

"No, it is not your fault so much as hers. What you have done is very natural."

"It is indeed!" cried Caspar Goodwood, with a voluntary laugh. "And now that I have come, at any rate, may I not stay?"

"You may sit down, certainly."

And Isabel went back to her chair again, while her visitor took the first place that offered, in the manner of a man accustomed to pay little thought to the sort of chair he sat in.

"I have been hoping every day for an answer to my letter," he said. "You might have written me a few lines."

"It was not the trouble of writing that prevented me; I could as easily have written you four pages as one. But my silence was deliberate; I thought it best."

He sat with his eyes fixed on hers while she said this; then he lowered them and attached them to a spot in the carpet, as