‘That’s very well. But by your own admission you saw I was marching, and even if she had given the alarm you wouldn’t have tried to stop me.’

‘No, but some one else would.’

‘Whom do you mean?’ Isabel asked, looking very hard at her aunt.

Mrs Touchett’s little bright eyes, active as they usually were, sustained her gaze rather than returned it. ‘Would you have listened to Ralph?’

‘Not if he had abused Mr Osmond.’

‘Ralph doesn’t abuse people; you know that perfectly. He cares very much for you.’

‘I know he does,’ said Isabel; ‘and I shall feel the value of it now, for he knows that whatever I do I do with reason.’

‘He never believed you would do this. I told him you were capable of it, and he argued the other way.’

‘He did it for the sake of argument,’ the girl smiled. ‘You don’t accuse him of having deceived you; why should you accuse Madame Merle?’

‘He never pretended he’d prevent it.’

‘I’m glad of that!’ cried Isabel gaily. ‘I wish very much,’ she presently added, ‘that when he comes you’d tell him first of my engagement.’

‘Of course I’ll mention it,’ said Mrs Touchett. ‘I shall say nothing more to you about it, but I give you notice I shall talk to others.’

‘That’s as you please. I only meant that it’s rather better the announcement should come from you than from me.’

‘I quite agree with you; it’s much more proper!’ And on this the aunt and the niece went to breakfast, where Mrs Touchett, as good as her word, made no allusion to Gilbert Osmond. After an interval of silence, however, she asked her companion from whom she had received a visit an hour before.

‘From an old friend—an American gentleman,’ Isabel said with a colour in her cheek.

‘An American gentleman of course. It’s only an American gentleman who calls at ten o’clock in the morning.’

‘It was half-past ten; he was in a great hurry; he goes away this evening.’

‘Couldn’t he have come yesterday, at the usual time?’

‘He only arrived last night.’

‘He spends but twenty-four hours in Florence?’ Mrs Touchett cried. ‘He’s an American gentleman truly.’

‘He is indeed,’ said Isabel, thinking with perverse admiration of what Caspar Goodwood had done for her.

Two days afterwards Ralph arrived; but though Isabel was sure that Mrs Touchett had lost no time in imparting to him the great fact, he showed at first no open knowledge of it. Their prompted talk was naturally of his health; Isabel had many questions to ask about Corfu. She had been shocked by his appearance when he came into the room; she had forgotten how ill he looked. In spite of Corfu he looked very ill to-day, and she wondered if he were really worse or if she were simply disaccustomed to living