Chapter XXIV

 

One morning, on her return from her drive, some half-hour before luncheon¹, she quitted her vehicle in the court of the palace and, instead of ascending² the great staircase, crossed the court, passed beneath another archway and entered the garden. A sweeter spot at this moment could not have been imagined. The stillness of noontide hung over it, and the warm shade, enclosed and still, made bowers³ like spacious⁴ caves. Ralph was sitting there in the clear gloom, at the base of a statue of Terpsichore — a dancing nymph with taper⁵ fingers and inflated⁶ draperies in the manner of Bernini; the extreme relaxation⁷ of his attitude suggested at first to Isabel that he was asleep. Her light footstep on the grass had not roused him, and before turning away she stood for a moment looking at him. During this instant he opened his eyes; upon which she sat down on a rustic⁸ chair that matched with his own. Though in her irritation⁹ she had accused him of indifference¹⁰ she was not blind to the fact that he had visibly had something to brood over. But she had explained his air of absence partly by the languor¹¹ of his increased weakness, partly by worries connected with the property inherited from his father — the fruit of eccentric arrangements of which Mrs. Touchett disapproved

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