Lord Warburton was left standing with Ralph Touchett, to whom in a
moment he said: "You wished a while ago to see my idea of an
interesting woman. There it is!"
CHAPTER 3
Mrs. Touchett was certainly a person of many oddities, of which
her behaviour on returning to her husband's house after many months
was a noticeable specimen. She had her own way of doing all that she
did, and this is the simplest description of a character which,
although by no means without liberal motions, rarely succeeded in
giving an impression of suavity. Mrs. Touchett might do a great deal
of good, but she never pleased. This way of her own, of which she
was so fond, was not intrinsically offensive- it was just
unmistakeably distinguished from the ways of others. The edges of
her conduct were so very clear-cut that for susceptible persons it
sometimes had a knife-like effect. That hard fineness came out in
her deportment during the first hours of her return from America,
under circumstances in which it might have seemed that her first act
would have been to exchange greetings with her husband and son. Mrs.
Touchett, for reasons which she deemed excellent, always retired on
such occasions into impenetrable seclusion, postponing the more
sentimental ceremony until she had repaired the disorder of dress with
a completeness which had the less reason to be of high importance as
neither beauty nor vanity were concerned in it.
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