She wants me to look after
you, but that isn't the principal thing. The principal thing is that
she wants me to leave Rome."
"Ah, you see too much in it," Ralph suggested.
"I bore her," Goodwood went on; "she has nothing to say to me, so
she invented that."
"Oh then, if it's a convenience to her I certainly will take you
with me. Though I don't see why it should be a convenience," Ralph
added in a moment.
"Well," said Caspar Goodwood simply, "she thinks I'm watching her."
"Watching her?"
"Trying to make out if she's happy."
"That's easy to make out," said Ralph. "She's the most visibly happy
woman I know."
"Exactly so; I'm satisfied," Goodwood answered dryly. For all his
dryness, however, he had more to say. "I've been watching her; I was
an old friend and it seemed to me I had the right. She pretends to
be happy; that was what she undertook to be; and I thought I should
like to see for myself what it amounts to. I've seen," he continued
with a harsh ring in his voice, "and I don't want to see any more. I'm
now quite ready to go."
"Do you know it strikes me as about time you should?" Ralph
rejoined. And this was the only conversation these gentlemen had about
Isabel Osmond.
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