He had kept, evidently in spite of shocks, every one of his merits--properties these partaking of the essence of great decent houses, as one might put it; resembling their innermost fixtures and ornaments, not subject to vulgar shifting and removable only by some whole break-up. They talked of the matters naturally in order; her uncle's death, Ralph's state of health, the way she had passed her winter, her visit to Rome, her return to Florence, her plans for the summer, the hotel she was staying at; and then of Lord Warburton's own adventures, movements, intentions, impressions and present domicile. At last there was a silence, and it said so much more than either had said that it scarce needed his final words. "I've written to you several times."
"Written to me? I've never had your letters."
"I never sent them. I burned them up."
"Ah," laughed Isabel, "it was better that you should do that than I!"
"I thought you wouldn't care for them," he went on with a simplicity that touched her. "It seemed to me that after all I had no right to trouble you with letters."
"I should have been very glad to have news of you. You know how I hoped that--that--" But she stopped; there would be such a flatness in the utterance of her thought.
"I know what you're going to say. You hoped we should always remain good friends." This formula, as Lord Warburton uttered it, was certainly flat enough; but then he was interested in making it appear so.
She found herself reduced simply to "Please don't talk of all that"; a speech which hardly struck her as improvement on the other.
"It's a small consolation to allow me!" her companion exclaimed with force.
"I can't pretend to console you," said the girl, who, all still as she sat there, threw herself back with a sort of inward triumph on the answer that had satisfied him so little six months before. He was pleasant, he was powerful, he was gallant; there was no better man than he. But her answer remained.
"It's very well you don't try to console me; it wouldn't be in your power," she heard him say through the medium of her strange elation.
"I hoped we should meet again, because I had no fear you would attempt to make me feel I had wronged you. But when you do that--the pain's greater than the pleasure." And she got up with a small conscious majesty, looking for her companions.