VOLUME II
39. CHAPTER XXXIX
(continued)
"There's complete preparation for it. Her going off with me would
make the explosion. Osmond isn't fond of his wife's cousin."
"Then of course he'd make a row. But won't he make a row if you
stop here?"
"That's what I want to see. He made one the last time I was in
Rome, and then I thought it my duty to disappear. Now I think
it's my duty to stop and defend her."
"My dear Touchett, your defensive powers--!" Lord Warburton began
with a smile. But he saw something in his companion's face that
checked him. "Your duty, in these premises, seems to me rather a
nice question," he observed instead.
Ralph for a short time answered nothing. "It's true that my
defensive powers are small," he returned at last; "but as my
aggressive ones are still smaller Osmond may after all not think
me worth his gunpowder. At any rate," he added, "there are things
I'm curious to see."
"You're sacrificing your health to your curiosity then?"
"I'm not much interested in my health, and I'm deeply interested
in Mrs. Osmond."
"So am I. But not as I once was," Lord Warburton added quickly.
This was one of the allusions he had not hitherto found occasion
to make.
"Does she strike you as very happy?" Ralph enquired, emboldened
by this confidence.
"Well, I don't know; I've hardly thought. She told me the other
night she was happy."
"Ah, she told YOU, of course," Ralph exclaimed, smiling.
"I don't know that. It seems to me I was rather the sort of
person she might have complained to."
"Complained? She'll never complain. She has done it--what she HAS
done--and she knows it. She'll complain to you least of all.
She's very careful."
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