t he talked perhaps as little as ever; considering, that is,
how much there was in Rome to talk about. His arrival was not calculated
to simplify her relations with her husband, for if Mr. Osmond didn't
like her friends Mr. Goodwood had no claim upon his attention save as
having been one of the first of them. There was nothing for her to say
of him but that he was the very oldest; this rather meagre synthesis
exhausted the facts. She had been obliged to introduce him to Gilbert;
it was impossible she should not ask him to dinner, to her Thursday
evenings, of which she had grown very weary, but to which her husband
still held for the sake not so much of inviting people as of not
inviting them.

To the Thursdays Mr. Goodwood came regularly, solemnly, rather early;
he appeared to regard them with a good deal of gravity. Isabel every
now and then had a moment of anger; there was something so literal about
him; she thought he might know that she didn't know what to do with him.
But she couldn't call him stupid; he was not that in the least; he was
only extraordinarily honest. To be as honest as that made a man very
different from most people; one had to be almost equally honest with
HIM. She made this latter reflection at the very time she was flattering
herself she had persuaded him that she was the most light-hearted of
women. He never threw any doubt on this point, never asked her any
personal questions. He got on much better with Osmond than had seemed
probable. Osmond had a great dislike to being counted on; in such a case
he had an irresistible need of disappointing you. It was in virtue of
this principle that he gave himself the entertainment of taking a fancy
to a perpendicular Bostonian whom he had been depended upon to treat
with coldness. He asked Isabel if Mr. Goodwood also had wanted to marry
her, and expressed surprise at her not having accepted him. It would
have been an excellent thing, like living under some tall belfry which
would strike all the hours and make a queer vibration in the upper air.
He declared he liked to talk with the great Goodwood; it wasn't easy at
first, you had to climb up an interminable steep staircase up to the
top of the tower; but when you got there you had a big view and felt a
little fresh breeze. Osmond, as we know, had delightful qualities, and
he gave Caspar Goodwood the benefit of them all. Isabel could see that
Mr. Goodwood thought better of her husband than he had ever wished