, Ralph had had, toward
the end, a sharp inward vision of Osmond's making it of small ease to
his wife that she should continue to receive Mr. Touchett. He was not
jealous--he had not that excuse; no one could be jealous of Ralph. But
he made Isabel pay for her old-time kindness, of which so much was
still left; and as Ralph had no idea of her paying too much, so when his
suspicion had become sharp, he had taken himself off. In doing so he
had deprived Isabel of a very interesting occupation: she had been
constantly wondering what fine principle was keeping him alive. She had
decided that it was his love of conversation; his conversation had been
better than ever. He had given up walking; he was no longer a humorous
stroller. He sat all day in a chair--almost any chair would serve, and
was so dependent on what you would do for him that, had not his talk
been highly contemplative, you might have thought he was blind. The
reader already knows more about him than Isabel was ever to know, and
the reader may therefore be given the key to the mystery. What kept
Ralph alive was simply the fact that he had not yet seen enough of
the person in the world in whom he was most interested: he was not yet
satisfied. There was more to come; he couldn't make up his mind to lose
that. He wanted to see what she would make of her husband--or what her
husband would make of her. This was only the first act of the drama, and
he was determined to sit out the performance. His determination had held
good; it had kept him going some eighteen months more, till the time of
his return to Rome with Lord Warburton. It had given him indeed such an
air of intending to live indefinitely that Mrs. Touchett, though more
accessible to confusions of thought in the matter of this strange,
unremunerative--and unremunerated--son of hers than she had ever been
before, had, as we have learned, not scrupled to embark for a distant
land. If Ralph had been kept alive by suspense it was with a good deal
of the same emotion--the excitement of wondering in what state she
should find him--that Isabel mounted to his apartment the day after Lord
Warburton had notified her of his arrival in Rome.

She spent an hour with him; it was the first of several visits. Gilbert
Osmond called on him punctually, and on their sending their carriage for
him Ralph came more than once to Palazzo Roccanera. A fortnight elapsed,
at the end of which Ralph announced to Lord Warburton that he t