Touchett- a
fact which caused Ralph to congratulate himself afresh on Sir
Matthew Hope's having promised to come down in the five o'clock
train and spend the night. Mrs. Touchett, he learned, on reaching
home, had been constantly with the old man and was with him at that
moment; and this fact made Ralph say to himself that, after all,
what his mother wanted was just easy occasion. The finer natures
were those that shone at the larger times. Isabel went to her own
room, noting throughout the house that perceptible hush which precedes
a crisis. At the end of an hour, however, she came downstairs in
search of her aunt, whom she wished to ask about Mr. Touchett. She
went into the library, but Mrs. Touchett was not there, and as the
weather, which had been damp and chill, was now altogether spoiled, it
was not probable she had gone for her usual walk in the grounds.
Isabel was on the point of ringing to send a question to her room,
when this purpose quickly yielded to an unexpected sound- the sound of
low music proceeding apparently from the saloon. She knew her aunt
never touched the piano, and the musician was therefore probably
Ralph, who played for his own amusement.
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