Experience, however, had not quenched her youth; it had
simply made her sympathetic and supple. She was in a word a woman of
strong impulses kept in admirable order. This commended itself to
Isabel as an ideal combination.
The girl made these reflections while the three ladies sat at
their tea, but that ceremony was interrupted before long by the
arrival of the great doctor from London, who had been immediately
ushered into the drawing-room. Mrs. Touchett took him off to the
library for a private talk; and then Madame Merle and Isabel parted,
to meet again at dinner. The idea of seeing more of this interesting
woman did much to mitigate Isabel's sense of the sadness now
settling on Gardencourt.
When she came into the drawing-room before dinner she found the
place empty; but in the course of a moment Ralph arrived. His
anxiety about his father had been lightened; Sir Matthew Hope's view
of his condition was less depressed than his own had been. The
doctor recommended that the nurse alone should remain with the old man
for the next three or four hours; so that Ralph, his mother and the
great physician himself were free to dine at table.
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