to; he had given her the impression that morning in Florence of being
inaccessible to a good impression. Gilbert asked him repeatedly to
dinner, and Mr. Goodwood smoked a cigar with him afterwards and even
desired to be shown his collections. Gilbert said to Isabel that he was
very original; he was as strong and of as good a style as an English
portmanteau,--he had plenty of straps and buckles which would never wear
out, and a capital patent lock. Caspar Goodwood took to riding on the
Campagna and devoted much time to this exercise; it was therefore mainly
in the evening that Isabel saw him. She bethought herself of saying to
him one day that if he were willing he could render her a service. And
then she added smiling:

"I don't know, however, what right I have to ask a service of you."

"You're the person in the world who has most right," he answered. "I've
given you assurances that I've never given any one else."

The service was that he should go and see her cousin Ralph, who was ill
at the Hotel de Paris, alone, and be as kind to him as possible. Mr.
Goodwood had never seen him, but he would know who the poor fellow
was; if she was not mistaken Ralph had once invited him to Gardencourt.
Caspar remembered the invitation perfectly, and, though he was not
supposed to be a man of imagination, had enough to put himself in the
place of a poor gentleman who lay dying at a Roman inn. He called at the
Hotel de Paris and, on being shown into the presence of the master of
Gardencourt, found Miss Stackpole sitting beside his sofa. A singular
change had in fact occurred in this lady's relations with Ralph
Touchett. She had not been asked by Isabel to go and see him, but on
hearing that he was too ill to come out had immediately gone of her
own motion. After this she had paid him a daily visit--always under
the conviction that they were great enemies. "Oh yes, we're intimate
enemies," Ralph used to say; and he accused her freely--as freely as the
humour of it would allow--of coming to worry him to death. In reality
they became excellent friends, Henrietta much wondering that she should
never have liked him before. Ralph liked her exactly as much as he had
always done; he had never doubted for a moment that she was an excellent
fellow. They talked about everything and always differed; about
everything, that is, but Isabel--a topic as to which Ralph always had
a thin forefinger on his lips. Mr. Bantling on the other hand proved