e talks as a steel
pen writes; aren't her letters, by the way, on ruled paper? She thinks
and moves and walks and looks exactly as she talks. You may say that
she doesn't hurt me, inasmuch as I don't see her. I don't see her, but I
hear her; I hear her all day long. Her voice is in my ears; I can't get
rid of it. I know exactly what she says, and every inflexion of the tone
in which she says it. She says charming things about me, and they give
you great comfort. I don't like at all to think she talks about me--I
feel as I should feel if I knew the footman were wearing my hat."

Henrietta talked about Gilbert Osmond, as his wife assured him, rather
less than he suspected. She had plenty of other subjects, in two of
which the reader may be supposed to be especially interested. She let
her friend know that Caspar Goodwood had discovered for himself that
she was unhappy, though indeed her ingenuity was unable to suggest what
comfort he hoped to give her by coming to Rome and yet not calling
on her. They met him twice in the street, but he had no appearance of
seeing them; they were driving, and he had a habit of looking straight
in front of him, as if he proposed to take in but one object at a time.
Isabel could have fancied she had seen him the day before; it must
have been with just that face and step that he had walked out of Mrs.
Touchett's door at the close of their last interview. He was dressed
just as he had been dressed on that day, Isabel remembered the colour
of his cravat; and yet in spite of this familiar look there was a
strangeness in his figure too, something that made her feel it afresh
to be rather terrible he should have come to Rome. He looked bigger and
more overtopping than of old, and in those days he certainly reached
high enough. She noticed that the people whom he passed looked back
after him; but he went straight forward, lifting above them a face like
a February sky.

Miss Stackpole's other topic was very different; she gave Isabel the
latest news about Mr. Bantling. He had been out in the United States
the year before, and she was happy to say she had been able to show him
considerable attention. She didn't know how much he had enjoyed it, but
she would undertake to say it had done him good; he wasn't the same man
when he left as he had been when he came. It had opened his eyes and
shown him that England wasn't everything. He had been very much liked in
most places, and thought extremely simple