“I suppose you didn’t expect to see me,” he said; “I’ve but just arrived. Literally, I only got here this evening. You see I’ve lost no time in coming to pay you my respects. I knew you were at home on Thursdays.”
“You see the fame of your Thursdays has spread to England,” Osmond remarked to his wife.
“It’s very kind of Lord Warburton to come so soon; we’re greatly flattered,” Isabel said.
“Ah well, it’s better than stopping in one of those horrible inns,” Osmond went on.
“The hotel seems very good; I think it’s the same at which I saw you four years since. You know it was here in Rome that we first met; it’s a long time ago. Do you remember where I bade you good-bye?” his lordship asked of his hostess. “It was in the Capitol, in the first room.”
“I remember that myself,” said Osmond. “I was there at the time.”
“Yes, I remember you there. I was very sorry to leave Rome—so sorry that, somehow or other, it became almost a dismal memory, and I’ve never cared to come back till to-day. But I knew you were living here,” her old friend went on to Isabel, “and I assure you I’ve often thought of you. It must be a charming place to live in,” he added with a look, round him, at her established home, in which she might have caught the dim ghost of his old ruefulness.
“We should have been glad to see you at any time,” Osmond observed with propriety.
“Thank you very much. I haven’t been out of England since then. Till a month ago I really supposed my travels over.”
“I’ve heard of you from time to time,” said Isabel, who had already, with her rare capacity for such inward feats, taken the measure of what meeting him again meant for her.