Page:The Portrait of a Lady (London, Macmillan & Co., 1881) Volume 3.djvu/82

 hope to do much good unless he gets a good deal hated; that's the way he knows how his work goes on. And it's just the same for a lady. But I didn't expect it of Isabel."

"Do you mean that she hates you?" the Countess inquired.

"I don't know; I want to see. That's what I am going to Rome for."

"Dear me, what a tiresome errand!" the Countess exclaimed.

"She doesn't write to me in the same way; it's easy to see there's a difference. If you know anything," Miss Stackpole went on, "I should like to hear it beforehand, so as to decide on the line I shall take."

The Countess thrust out her under lip and gave a gradual shrug.

"I know very little; I see and hear very little of Osmond. He doesn't like me any better than he appears to like you."

"Yet you are not a lady-correspondent," said Henrietta, pensively.

"Oh, he has plenty of reasons. Nevertheless they have invited me—I am to stay in the house!" And the Countess smiled almost fiercely; her exultation, for the moment, took little account of Miss Stackpole's disappointment.

This lady, however, regarded it very placidly.

"I should not have gone if she had asked me. That is, I think I should not; and I am glad I hadn't to make up my mind. It would have been a very difficult question. I should not have liked to turn away from her, and yet I should not have been happy under her roof. A pension will suit me very well. But that is not all."

"Rome is very good just now," said the Countess; "there are all sorts of smart people. Did you ever hear of Lord Warburton?"