But Isabel performed
the journey with a positive enjoyment of its dangers and lost her
way almost on purpose, in order to get more sensations, so that she
was disappointed when an obliging policeman easily set her right
again. She was so fond of the spectacle of human life that she enjoyed
even the aspect of gathering dusk in the London streets- the moving
crowds, the hurrying cabs, the lighted shops, the flaring stalls,
the dark, shining dampness of everything. That evening, at her
hotel, she wrote to Madame Merle that she should start in a day or two
for Rome. She made her way down to Rome without touching at
Florence- having gone first to Venice and then proceeded southward
by Ancona. She accomplished this journey without other assistance than
that of her servant, for her natural protectors were not now on the
ground. Ralph Touchett was spending the winter at Corfu, and Miss
Stackpole, in the September previous, had been recalled to America
by a telegram from the Interviewer. This journal offered its brilliant
correspondent a fresher field for her genius than the mouldering
cities of Europe, and Henrietta was cheered on her way by a promise
from Mr.
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