proof of rarity had affected
him more and more as gross and detestable; like the swallowing of mugs
of beer to advertise what one could "stand." If an anonymous drawing on
a museum wall had been conscious and watchful it might have known this
peculiar pleasure of being at last and all of a sudden identified--as
from the hand of a great master--by the so high and so unnoticed fact of
style. His "style" was what the girl had discovered with a little help;
and now, beside herself enjoying it, she should publish it to the world
without his having any of the trouble. She should do the thing FOR him,
and he would not have waited in vain.

Shortly before the time fixed in advance for her departure this young
lady received from Mrs. Touchett a telegram running as follows: "Leave
Florence 4th June for Bellaggio, and take you if you have not other
views. But can't wait if you dawdle in Rome." The dawdling in Rome was
very pleasant, but Isabel had different views, and she let her aunt know
she would immediately join her. She told Gilbert Osmond that she had
done so, and he replied that, spending many of his summers as well as
his winters in Italy, he himself would loiter a little longer in the
cool shadow of Saint Peter's. He would not return to Florence for ten
days more, and in that time she would have started for Bellaggio.
It might be months in this case before he should see her again. This
exchange took place in the large decorated sitting-room occupied by our
friends at the hotel; it was late in the evening, and Ralph Touchett was
to take his cousin back to Florence on the morrow. Osmond had found the
girl alone; Miss Stackpole had contracted a friendship with a delightful
American family on the fourth floor and had mounted the interminable
staircase to pay them a visit. Henrietta contracted friendships, in
travelling, with great freedom, and had formed in railway-carriages
several that were among her most valued ties. Ralph was making
arrangements for the morrow's journey, and Isabel sat alone in a
wilderness of yellow upholstery. The chairs and sofas were orange;
the walls and windows were draped in purple and gilt. The mirrors, the
pictures had great flamboyant frames; the ceiling was deeply vaulted and
painted over with naked muses and cherubs. For Osmond the place was ugly
to distress; the false colours, the sham splendour were like vulgar,
bragging, lying talk. Isabel had taken in hand a volume of Ampere,
presented, o