y acute of her companion,
and it was certainly a proof of the aid that passion might render
perceptions she had never taken for fine. "Why do you always comeback to
what others think? I can't discuss Mr. Osmond with you."

"Of course not," said Caspar reasonably. And he sat there with his air
of stiff helplessness, as if not only this were true, but there were
nothing else that they might discuss.

"You see how little you gain," she accordingly broke out--"how little
comfort or satisfaction I can give you."

"I didn't expect you to give me much."

"I don't understand then why you came."

"I came because I wanted to see you once more--even just as you are."

"I appreciate that; but if you had waited a while, sooner or later
we should have been sure to meet, and our meeting would have been
pleasanter for each of us than this."

"Waited till after you're married? That's just what I didn't want to do.
You'll be different then."

"Not very. I shall still be a great friend of yours. You'll see."

"That will make it all the worse," said Mr. Goodwood grimly.

"Ah, you're unaccommodating! I can't promise to dislike you in order to
help you to resign yourself."

"I shouldn't care if you did!"

Isabel got up with a movement of repressed impatience and walked to the
window, where she remained a moment looking out. When she turned round
her visitor was still motionless in his place. She came toward him again
and stopped, resting her hand on the back of the chair she had just
quitted. "Do you mean you came simply to look at me? That's better for
you perhaps than for me."

"I wished to hear the sound of your voice," he said.

"You've heard it, and you see it says nothing very sweet."

"It gives me pleasure, all the same." And with this he got up. She had
felt pain and displeasure on receiving early that day the news he was in
Florence and by her leave would come within an hour to see her. She
had been vexed and distressed, though she had sent back word by his
messenger that he might come when he would. She had not been better
pleased when she saw him; his being there at all was so full of heavy
implications. It implied things she could never assent to--rights,
reproaches, remonstrance, rebuke, the expectation of making her change
her purpose. These things, however, if implied, had not been expressed;
and now our young lady, strangely enough, began to resent her visitor's
remarkable self-control. There was a dumb mise