don't care whether he understands me
or not," Henrietta declared. "The great thing is that he shouldn't die
in the cars."

"He won't do that," Isabel said, shaking her head with an extension of
faith.

"He won't if I can help it. I see you want us all to go. I don't know
what you want to do."

"I want to be alone," said Isabel.

"You won't be that so long as you've so much company at home."

"Ah, they're part of the comedy. You others are spectators."

"Do you call it a comedy, Isabel Archer?" Henrietta rather grimly asked.

"The tragedy then if you like. You're all looking at me; it makes me
uncomfortable."

Henrietta engaged in this act for a while. "You're like the stricken
deer, seeking the innermost shade. Oh, you do give me such a sense of
helplessness!" she broke out.

"I'm not at all helpless. There are many things I mean to do."

"It's not you I'm speaking of; it's myself. It's too much, having come
on purpose, to leave you just as I find you."

"You don't do that; you leave me much refreshed," Isabel said.

"Very mild refreshment--sour lemonade! I want you to promise me
something."

"I can't do that. I shall never make another promise. I made such a
solemn one four years ago, and I've succeeded so ill in keeping it."

"You've had no encouragement. In this case I should give you the
greatest. Leave your husband before the worst comes; that's what I want
you to promise."

"The worst? What do you call the worst?"

"Before your character gets spoiled."

"Do you mean my disposition? It won't get spoiled," Isabel answered,
smiling. "I'm taking very good care of it. I'm extremely struck," she
added, turning away, "with the off-hand way in which you speak of a
woman's leaving her husband. It's easy to see you've never had one!"

"Well," said Henrietta as if she were beginning an argument, "nothing is
more common in our Western cities, and it's to them, after all, that we
must look in the future." Her argument, however, does not concern this
history, which has too many other threads to unwind. She announced to
Ralph Touchett that she was ready to leave Rome by any train he might
designate, and Ralph immediately pulled himself together for departure.
Isabel went to see him at the last, and he made the same remark that
Henrietta had made. It struck him that Isabel was uncommonly glad to get
rid of them all.

For all answer to this she gently laid her hand on his, and said in a
low tone, with a q