Page:The Portrait of a Lady (London, Macmillan & Co., 1881) Volume 2.djvu/171

 anger perhaps was fortunate, inasmuch as it gave her a further reason for controlling herself. It was under the pressure of this control that she said, after a little, irrelevantly, by way of answer to Mr. Goodwood's speech—"When did you leave New York?"

He threw up his head a moment, as if he were calculating. "Seventeen days ago."

"You must have travelled fast in spite of your slow trains."

"I came as fast as I could. I would have come five days ago if I had been able."

"It wouldn't have made any difference, Mr. Goodwood," said Isabel, smiling.

"Not to you—no. But to me."

"You gain nothing that I see."

"That is for me to judge!"

"Of course. To me it seems that you only torment yourself." And then, to change the subject, Isabel asked him if he had seen Henrietta Stackpole.

He looked as if he had not come from Boston to Florence to talk about Henrietta Stackpole; but he answered distinctly enough, that this young lady had come to see him just before he left America.

"She came to see you?"

"Yes, she was in Boston, and she called at my office. It was the day I had got your letter."

"Did you tell her?" Isabel asked, with a certain anxiety.

"Oh no," said Caspar Goodwood, simply; "I didn't want to. She will hear it soon enough; she hears everything."

"I shall write to her; and then she will write to me and scold me," Isabel declared, trying to smile again.