CHAPTER 31
Isabel came back to Florence, but only after several months; an
interval sufficiently replete with incident. It is not, however,
during this interval that we are closely concerned with her; our
attention is engaged again on a certain day in the late spring-time,
shortly after her return to Palazzo Crescentini and a year from the
date of the incidents just narrated. She was alone on this occasion,
in one of the smaller of the numerous rooms devoted by Mrs. Touchett
to social uses, and there was that in her expression and attitude
which would have suggested that she was expecting a visitor. The
tall window was open, and though its green shutters were partly
drawn the bright air of the garden had come in through a broad
interstice and filled the room with warmth and perfume. Our young
woman stood near it for some time, her hands clasped behind her; she
gazed abroad with the vagueness of unrest. Too troubled for
attention she moved in a vain circle. Yet it could not be in her
thought to catch a glimpse of her visitor before he should pass into
the house, since the entrance to the palace was not through the
garden, in which stillness and privacy always reigned.
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