e in the morning to the Cascine. This suburban wilderness,
during the early hours, was void of all intruders, and our young lady,
joined by her lover in its quietest part, strolled with him a while
through the grey Italian shade and listened to the nightingales.

CHAPTER XXXIV

One morning, on her return from her drive, some half-hour before
luncheon, she quitted her vehicle in the court of the palace and,
instead of ascending the great staircase, crossed the court, passed
beneath another archway and entered the garden. A sweeter spot at this
moment could not have been imagined. The stillness of noontide hung over
it, and the warm shade, enclosed and still, made bowers like spacious
caves. Ralph was sitting there in the clear gloom, at the base of a
statue of Terpsichore--a dancing nymph with taper fingers and inflated
draperies in the manner of Bernini; the extreme relaxation of his
attitude suggested at first to Isabel that he was asleep. Her light
footstep on the grass had not roused him, and before turning away she
stood for a moment looking at him. During this instant he opened his
eyes; upon which she sat down on a rustic chair that matched with his
own. Though in her irritation she had accused him of indifference she
was not blind to the fact that he had visibly had something to brood
over. But she had explained his air of absence partly by the languor of
his increased weakness, partly by worries connected with the property
inherited from his father--the fruit of eccentric arrangements of
which Mrs. Touchett disapproved and which, as she had told Isabel, now
encountered opposition from the other partners in the bank. He ought to
have gone to England, his mother said, instead of coming to Florence;
he had not been there for months, and took no more interest in the bank
than in the state of Patagonia.

"I'm sorry I waked you," Isabel said; "you look too tired."

"I feel too tired. But I was not asleep. I was thinking of you."

"Are you tired of that?"

"Very much so. It leads to nothing. The road's long and I never arrive."

"What do you wish to arrive at?" she put to him, closing her parasol.

"At the point of expressing to myself properly what I think of your
engagement."

"Don't think too much of it," she lightly returned.

"Do you mean that it's none of my business?"

"Beyond a certain point, yes."

"That's the point I want to fix. I had an idea you may have found me
wanting in good manners. I