ss, useless. To this last character
she had called his attention by her ingenious plan for making him
leave Rome. He had no objection whatever to doing what he could for
her cousin, but it made him grind his teeth to think that of all the
services she might have asked of him this was the one she had been eager
to select. There had been no danger of her choosing one that would have
kept him in Rome.

To-night what he was chiefly thinking of was that he was to leave her
to-morrow and that he had gained nothing by coming but the knowledge
that he was as little wanted as ever. About herself he had gained no
knowledge; she was imperturbable, inscrutable, impenetrable. He felt the
old bitterness, which he had tried so hard to swallow, rise again in his
throat, and he knew there are disappointments that last as long as life.
Osmond went on talking; Goodwood was vaguely aware that he was touching
again upon his perfect intimacy with his wife. It seemed to him for a
moment that the man had a kind of demonic imagination; it was impossible
that without malice he should have selected so unusual a topic. But what
did it matter, after all, whether he were demonic or not, and whether
she loved him or hated him? She might hate him to the death without
one's gaining a straw one's self. "You travel, by the by, with Ralph
Touchett," Osmond said. "I suppose that means you'll move slowly?"

"I don't know. I shall do just as he likes."

"You're very accommodating. We're immensely obliged to you; you must
really let me say it. My wife has probably expressed to you what we
feel. Touchett has been on our minds all winter; it has looked more than
once as if he would never leave Rome. He ought never to have come; it's
worse than an imprudence for people in that state to travel; it's a kind
of indelicacy. I wouldn't for the world be under such an obligation to
Touchett as he has been to--to my wife and me. Other people inevitably
have to look after him, and every one isn't so generous as you."

"I've nothing else to do," Caspar said dryly.

Osmond looked at him a moment askance. "You ought to marry, and then
you'd have plenty to do! It's true that in that case you wouldn't be
quite so available for deeds of mercy."

"Do you find that as a married man you're so much occupied?" the young
man mechanically asked.

"Ah, you see, being married's in itself an occupation. It isn't always
active; it's often passive; but that takes even more attentio