eat oddity was that
the prospect pleased him; he was gratefully, luxuriously passive. He
felt even impatient to start; and indeed he had an immense longing to
see his own house again. The end of everything was at hand; it seemed
to him he could stretch out his arm and touch the goal. But he wanted to
die at home; it was the only wish he had left--to extend himself in the
large quiet room where he had last seen his father lie, and close his
eyes upon the summer dawn.

That same day Caspar Goodwood came to see him, and he informed his
visitor that Miss Stackpole had taken him up and was to conduct him back
to England. "Ah then," said Caspar, "I'm afraid I shall be a fifth wheel
to the coach. Mrs. Osmond has made me promise to go with you."

"Good heavens--it's the golden age! You're all too kind."

"The kindness on my part is to her; it's hardly to you."

"Granting that, SHE'S kind," smiled Ralph.

"To get people to go with you? Yes, that's a sort of kindness," Goodwood
answered without lending himself to the joke. "For myself, however," he
added, "I'll go so far as to say that I would much rather travel with
you and Miss Stackpole than with Miss Stackpole alone."

"And you'd rather stay here than do either," said Ralph. "There's really
no need of your coming. Henrietta's extraordinarily efficient."

"I'm sure of that. But I've promised Mrs. Osmond."

"You can easily get her to let you off."

"She wouldn't let me off for the world. She wants me to look after you,
but that isn't the principal thing. The principal thing is that she
wants me to leave Rome."

"Ah, you see too much in it," Ralph suggested.

"I bore her," Goodwood went on; "she has nothing to say to me, so she
invented that."

"Oh then, if it's a convenience to her I certainly will take you with
me. Though I don't see why it should be a convenience," Ralph added in a
moment.

"Well," said Caspar Goodwood simply, "she thinks I'm watching her."

"Watching her?"

"Trying to make out if she's happy."

"That's easy to make out," said Ralph. "She's the most visibly happy
woman I know."

"Exactly so; I'm satisfied," Goodwood answered dryly. For all his
dryness, however, he had more to say. "I've been watching her; I was
an old friend and it seemed to me I had the right. She pretends to be
happy; that was what she undertook to be; and I thought I should like to
see for myself what it amounts to. I've seen," he continued with a harsh
ring in his vo