d from
the ways of others. The edges of her conduct were so very clear-cut that
for susceptible persons it sometimes had a knife-like effect. That hard
fineness came out in her deportment during the first hours of her return
from America, under circumstances in which it might have seemed that
her first act would have been to exchange greetings with her husband
and son. Mrs. Touchett, for reasons which she deemed excellent, always
retired on such occasions into impenetrable seclusion, postponing the
more sentimental ceremony until she had repaired the disorder of dress
with a completeness which had the less reason to be of high importance
as neither beauty nor vanity were concerned in it. She was a plain-faced
old woman, without graces and without any great elegance, but with an
extreme respect for her own motives. She was usually prepared to explain
these--when the explanation was asked as a favour; and in such a case
they proved totally different from those that had been attributed to
her. She was virtually separated from her husband, but she appeared to
perceive nothing irregular in the situation. It had become clear, at an
early stage of their community, that they should never desire the same
thing at the same moment, and this appearance had prompted her to rescue
disagreement from the vulgar realm of accident. She did what she could
to erect it into a law--a much more edifying aspect of it--by going to
live in Florence, where she bought a house and established herself; and
by leaving her husband to take care of the English branch of his bank.
This arrangement greatly pleased her; it was so felicitously definite.
It struck her husband in the same light, in a foggy square in London,
where it was at times the most definite fact he discerned; but he
would have preferred that such unnatural things should have a greater
vagueness. To agree to disagree had cost him an effort; he was ready to
agree to almost anything but that, and saw no reason why either assent
or dissent should be so terribly consistent. Mrs. Touchett indulged in
no regrets nor speculations, and usually came once a year to spend a
month with her husband, a period during which she apparently took pains
to convince him that she had adopted the right system. She was not fond
of the English style of life, and had three or four reasons for it to
which she currently alluded; they bore upon minor points of that ancient
order, but for Mrs. Touchett they amply justi