Page:The Portrait of a Lady (London, Macmillan & Co., 1881) Volume 3.djvu/81

 "Don't permit it," said the Countess.

"That's what I want to talk about. I am going to Rome."

"So am I!" the Countess cried. "We will go together."

"With great pleasure. And when I write about my journey I will mention you by name, as my companion."

The Countess sprang from her chair and came and sat on the sofa beside her visitor.

"Ah, you must send me the paper! My husband won't like it; but he need never see it. Besides, he doesn't know how to read."

Henrietta's large eyes became immense.

"Doesn't know how to read? May I put that into my letter?"

"Into your letter?"

"In the Interviewer. That's my paper."

"Oh yes, if you like; with his name. Are you going to stay with Isabel?"

Henrietta held up her head, gazing a little in silence at her hostess.

"She has not asked me. I wrote to her I was coming, and she answered that she would engage a room for me at a pension."

The Countess listened with extreme interest.

"That's Osmond," she remarked, pregnantly.

"Isabel ought to resist," said Miss Stackpole. "I am afraid she has changed a great deal. I told her she would."

"I am sorry to hear it; I hoped she would have her own way. Why doesn't my brother like you?" the Countess added, ingenuously.

"I don't know, and I don't care. He is perfectly welcome not to like me; I don't want every one to like me; I should think less of myself if some people did. A journalist can't