Page:The Portrait of a Lady (London, Macmillan & Co., 1881) Volume 2.djvu/262

 "Speak for yourself. I made no secret whatever of my wanting to be here a while."

"Yes, I remember you said you wished to see the Minister of Foreign Affairs."

"I have seen him three times; he is very amusing."

"I think you have forgotten what you came for," said Ralph.

"Perhaps I have," his companion answered, rather gravely.

These two gentlemen were children of a race which is not distinguished by the absence of reserve, and they had travelled together from London to Rome without an allusion to matters that were uppermost in the mind of each. There was an old subject that they had once discussed, but it had lost its recognised place in their attention, and even after their arrival in Rome, where many things led back to it, they had kept the same half-diffident, half-confident silence.

"I recommend you to get the doctor's consent, all the same," Lord Warburton went on, abruptly, after an interval.

"The doctor's consent will spoil it; I never have it when I can help it!"

"What does Mrs. Osmond think?"

"I have not told her. She will probably say that Rome is too cold, and even offer to go with me to Catania. She is capable of that."

"In your place I should like it."

"Her husband won't like it."

"Ah well, I can fancy that; though it seems to me you are not bound to mind it. It's his affair."

"I don't want to make any more trouble between them," said Ralph.

"Is there so much already?"