wo
ladies, Ralph Touchett and Mr. Bantling having gone out together. The
visitor seemed to have wished to give Isabel a proof of his intention to
keep the promise made her the evening before; he was both discreet and
frank--not even dumbly importunate or remotely intense. He thus left
her to judge what a mere good friend he could be. He talked about his
travels, about Persia, about Turkey, and when Miss Stackpole asked him
whether it would "pay" for her to visit those countries assured her they
offered a great field to female enterprise. Isabel did him justice, but
she wondered what his purpose was and what he expected to gain even by
proving the superior strain of his sincerity. If he expected to melt
her by showing what a good fellow he was, he might spare himself the
trouble. She knew the superior strain of everything about him, and
nothing he could now do was required to light the view. Moreover
his being in Rome at all affected her as a complication of the wrong
sort--she liked so complications of the right. Nevertheless, when, on
bringing his call to a close, he said he too should be at Saint Peter's
and should look out for her and her friends, she was obliged to reply
that he must follow his convenience.

In the church, as she strolled over its tesselated acres, he was the
first person she encountered. She had not been one of the superior
tourists who are "disappointed" in Saint Peter's and find it smaller
than its fame; the first time she passed beneath the huge leathern
curtain that strains and bangs at the entrance, the first time she found
herself beneath the far-arching dome and saw the light drizzle down
through the air thickened with incense and with the reflections of
marble and gilt, of mosaic and bronze, her conception of greatness rose
and dizzily rose. After this it never lacked space to soar. She gazed
and wondered like a child or a peasant, she paid her silent tribute to
the seated sublime. Lord Warburton walked beside her and talked of Saint
Sophia of Constantinople; she feared for instance that he would end
by calling attention to his exemplary conduct. The service had not yet
begun, but at Saint Peter's there is much to observe, and as there is
something almost profane in the vastness of the place, which seems meant
as much for physical as for spiritual exercise, the different figures
and groups, the mingled worshippers and spectators, may follow their
various intentions without conflict or scand