Page:The Portrait of a Lady (London, Macmillan & Co., 1881) Volume 3.djvu/89

 , to themselves; there was only a custode hovering about the Medicean Venus. "I want you to do me a favour," Miss Stackpole went on.

Caspar Goodwood frowned a little, but he expressed no embarrassment at the sense of not looking eager. His face was that of a much older man than our earlier friend. "I'm sure it's something I shan't like," he said, rather loud.

"No, I don't think you will like it. If you did, it would be no favour."

"Well, let us hear it," he said, in the tone of a man quite conscious of his own reasonableness.

"You may say there is no particular reason why you should do me a favour. Indeed, I only know of one: the fact that if you would let me I would gladly do you one." Her soft, exact tone, in which there was no attempt at effect, had an extreme sincerity; and her companion, though he presented rather a hard surface, could not help being touched by it. When he was touched he rarely showed it, however, by the usual signs; he neither blushed, nor looked away, nor looked conscious. He only fixed his attention more directly; he seemed to consider with added firmness. Henrietta went on therefore disinterestedly, without the sense of an advantage. "I may say now, indeed—it seems a good time—that if I have ever annoyed you (and I think sometimes that I have), it is because I knew that I was willing to suffer annoyance for you. I have troubled you—doubtless. But I would take trouble for you."

Goodwood hesitated. "You are taking trouble now."

"Yes, I am, some. I want you to consider whether it is better on the whole that you should go to Rome."

"I thought you were going to say that!" Goodwood exclaimed, rather artlessly.