She let her friend know that Caspar Goodwood had discovered for himself that she was unhappy, though indeed her ingenuity was unable to suggest what comfort he hoped to give her by coming to Rome and yet not calling on her.They met him twice in the street, but he had no appearance of seeing them; they were driving, and he had a habit of looking straight in front of him, as if he proposed to take in but one object at a time.Isabel could have fancied she had seen him the day before; it must have been with just that face and step that he had walked out of Mrs.Touchett's door at the close of their last interview.He was dressed just as he had been dressed on that day, Isabel remembered the colour of his cravat; and yet in spite of this familiar look there was a strangeness in his figure too, something that made her feel it afresh to be rather terrible he should have come to Rome.He looked bigger and more overtopping than of old, and in those days he certainly reached high enough.She noticed that the people whom he passed looked back after him; but he went straight forward, lifting above them a face like a February sky.
Miss Stackpole's other topic was very different; she gave Isabel the latest news about Mr.Bantling.He had been out in the United States the year before, and she was happy to say she had been able to show him considerable attention.She didn't know how much he had enjoyed it, but she would undertake to say it had done him good; he wasn't the same man when he left as he had been when he came.It had opened his eyes and shown him that England wasn't everything.He had been very much liked in most places, and thought extremely simple-more simple than the English were commonly supposed to be.There were people who had thought him affected; she didn't know whether they meant that his simplicity was an affectation.Some of his questions were too discouraging; he thought all the chambermaids were farmers'
daughters-or all the farmers' daughters were chambermaids-she couldn't exactly remember which.He hadn't seemed able to grasp the great school system; it had been really too much for him.On the whole he had behaved as if there were too much of everything-a if he could only take in a small part.The part he had chosen was the hotel system and the river navigation.He had seemed really fascinated with the hotels; he had a photograph of every one he had visited.But the river steamers were his principal interest; he wanted to do nothing but sail on the big boats.They had travelled together from New York to Milwaukee, stopping at the most interesting cities on the route; and whenever they started afresh he had wanted to know if they could go by the steamer.He seemed to have no idea of geography-had an impression that Baltimore was a Western city and was perpetually expecting to arrive at the Mississippi.He appeared never to have heard of any river in America but the Mississippi and was unprepared to recognize the existence of the Hudson, though obliged to confess at last that it was fully equal to the Rhine.They had spent some pleasant hours in the palace-cars; he was always ordering ice-cream from the coloured man.He could never get used to that idea-that you could get ice-cream in the cars.Of course you couldn't, nor fans, nor candy, nor anything in the English cars! He found the heat quite overwhelming, and she had told him she indeed expected it was the biggest he had ever experienced.He was now in England, hunting-"hunting round" Henrietta called it.These amusements were those of the American red men; we had left that behind long ago, the pleasures of the chase.It seemed to be generally believed in England that we wore tomahawks and feathers; but such a costume was more in keeping with English habits.Mr.Bantling would not have time to join her in Italy, but when she should go to Paris again he expected to come over.He wanted very much to see Versailles again; he was very fond of the ancient regime.
They didn't agree about that, but that was what she liked Versailles for, that you could see the ancient rigime had been swept away.
There were no dukes and marquises there now; she remembered on the contrary one day when there were five American families, walking all round.Mr.Bantling was very anxious that she should take up the subject of England again, and he thought she might get on better with it now; England had changed a good deal within two or three years.He was determined that if she went there he should go to see his sister, Lady Pensil, and that this time the invitation should come to her straight.The mystery about that other one had never been explained.
Caspar Goodwood came at last to Palazzo Roccanera; he had written Isabel a note beforehand, to ask leave.This was promptly granted; she would be at home at six o'clock that afternoon.She spent the day wondering what he was coming for-what good he expected to get of it.
He had presented himself hitherto as a person destitute of the faculty of compromise, who would take what he had asked for or take nothing.
Isabel's hospitality, however, raised no questions, and she found no great difficulty in appearing happy enough to deceive him.It was her conviction at least that she deceived him, made him say to himself that he had been misinformed.But she also saw, so she believed, that he was not disappointed, as some other men, she was sure, would have been; he had not come to Rome to look for an opportunity.She never found out what he had come for; he offered her no explanation;there could be none but the very simple one that he wanted to see her.
