Miss
Stackpole didn't take so much for granted. She took for granted that he
was always ready for some allusion to Mrs. Osmond; she had done so when
they met in Paris, six weeks after his arrival in Europe, and she had
repeated the assumption with every successive opportunity. He had no
wish whatever to allude to Mrs. Osmond; he was NOT always thinking of
her; he was perfectly sure of that. He was the most reserved, the least
colloquial of men, and this enquiring authoress was constantly flashing
her lantern into the quiet darkness of his soul. He wished she didn't
care so much; he even wished, though it might seem rather brutal of him,
that she would leave him alone. In spite of this, however, he just now
made other reflections--which show how widely different, in effect, his
ill-humour was from Gilbert Osmond's. He desired to go immediately to
Rome; he would have liked to go alone, in the night-train. He hated the
European railway-carriages, in which one sat for hours in a vise, knee
to knee and nose to nose with a foreigner to whom one presently found
one's self objecting with all the added vehemence of one's wish to have
the window open; and if they were worse at night even than by day, at
least at night one could sleep and dream of an American saloon-car. But
he couldn't take a night-train when Miss Stackpole was starting in the
morning; it struck him that this would be an insult to an unprotected
woman. Nor could he wait until after she had gone unless he should wait
longer than he had patience for. It wouldn't do to start the next day.
She worried him; she oppressed him; the idea of spending the day in
a European railway-carriage with her offered a complication of
irritations. Still, she was a lady travelling alone; it was his duty to
put himself out for her. There could be no two questions about that;
it was a perfectly clear necessity. He looked extremely grave for some
moments and then said, wholly without the flourish of gallantry but in a
tone of extreme distinctness, "Of course if you're going to-morrow I'll
go too, as I may be of assistance to you."

"Well, Mr. Goodwood, I should hope so!" Henrietta returned
imperturbably.

CHAPTER XLV

I have already had reason to say that Isabel knew her husband to be
displeased by the continuance of Ralph's visit to Rome. That knowledge
was very present to her as she went to her cousin's hotel the day
after she had invited Lord Warburton to give a tangible proof