‘It was a very quiet conversation.’

Henrietta for a moment regarded her guest. ‘It must have been hellish,’ she then remarked. And Isabel didn’t deny that it had been hellish. But she confined herself to answering Henrietta’s questions, which was easy, as they were tolerably definite. For the present she offered her no new information. ‘Well,’ said Miss Stackpole at last, ‘I’ve only one criticism to make. I don’t see why you promised little Miss Osmond to go back.’

‘I’m not sure I myself see now,’ Isabel replied. ‘But I did then.’

‘If you’ve forgotten your reason perhaps you won’t return.’

Isabel waited a moment. ‘Perhaps I shall find another.’

‘You’ll certainly never find a good one.’

‘In default of a better my having promised will do,’ Isabel suggested.

‘Yes; that’s why I hate it.’

‘Don’t speak of it now. I’ve a little time. Coming away was a complication, but what will going back be?’

‘You must remember, after all, that he won’t make you a scene!’ said Henrietta with much intention.

‘He will, though,’ Isabel answered gravely. ‘It won’t be the scene of a moment; it will be a scene of the rest of my life.’

For some minutes the two women sat and considered this remainder, and then Miss Stackpole, to change the subject, as Isabel had requested, announced abruptly: ‘I’ve been to stay with Lady Pensil!’

‘Ah, the invitation came at last!’

‘Yes; it took five years. But this time she wanted to see me.’

‘Naturally enough.’

‘It was more natural than I think you know,’ said Henrietta, who fixed her eyes on a distant point. And then she added, turning suddenly: ‘Isabel Archer, I beg your pardon. You don’t know why? Because I criticized you, and yet I’ve gone further than you. Mr Osmond, at least, was born on the other side!’

It was a moment before Isabel grasped her meaning; this sense was so modestly, or at least so ingeniously, veiled. Isabel’s mind was not possessed at present with the comicality of things; but she greeted with a quick laugh the image that her companion had raised. She immediately recovered herself, however, and with the right excess of intensity, ‘Henrietta Stackpole,’ she asked, ‘are you going to give up your country?’

‘Yes, my poor Isabel, I am. I won’t pretend to deny it; I look the fact in the face. I’m going to marry Mr Bantling and locate right here in London.’

‘It seems very strange,’ said Isabel, smiling now.

‘Well yes, I suppose it does. I’ve come to it little by little. I think I know what I’m doing; but I don’t know as I can explain.’

‘One can’t explain one’s marriage,’ Isabel answered. ‘And yours doesn’t need to be explained. Mr Bantling isn’t a riddle.’