The Portrait of a Lady — Volume 1

“That’s capital; it’s very kind of you. But I should like to do a little more.”

Something of that veiled acuteness with which it had been on Daniel Touchett’s part the habit of a lifetime to listen to a financial proposition still lingered in the face in which the invalid had not obliterated the man of business. “I shall be happy to consider it,” he said softly.

“Isabel’s poor then. My mother tells me that she has but a few hundred dollars a year. I should like to make her rich.”

“What do you mean by rich?”

“I call people rich when they’re able to meet the requirements of their imagination. Isabel has a great deal of imagination.”

“So have you, my son,” said Mr. Touchett, listening very attentively but a little confusedly.

“You tell me I shall have money enough for two. What I want is that you should kindly relieve me of my superfluity and make it over to Isabel. Divide my inheritance into two equal halves and give her the second.”

“To do what she likes with?”

“Absolutely what she likes.”

“And without an equivalent?”

“What equivalent could there be?”

“The one I’ve already mentioned.”

“Her marrying—some one or other? It’s just to do away with anything of that sort that I make my suggestion. If she has an easy income she’ll never have to marry for a support. That’s what I want cannily to prevent. She wishes to be free, and your bequest will make her free.”

“Well, you seem to have thought it out,” said Mr. Touchett. “But I don’t see why you appeal to me. The money will be yours, and you can easily give it to her yourself.”

Ralph openly stared. “Ah, dear father, I can’t offer Isabel money!”

The old man gave a groan. “Don’t tell me you’re not in love with her! Do you want me to have the credit of it?”

“Entirely. I should like it simply to be a clause in your will, without the slightest reference to me.”

“Do you want me to make a new will then?”

“A few words will do it; you can attend to it the next time you feel a little lively.”

“You must telegraph to Mr. Hilary then. I’ll do nothing without my solicitor.”

“You shall see Mr. Hilary to-morrow.”

“He’ll think we’ve quarrelled, you and I,” said the old man.

“Very probably; I shall like him to think it,” said Ralph, smiling; “and, to carry out the idea, I give you notice that I shall be very sharp, quite horrid and strange, with you.”

The humour of this appeared to touch his father, who lay a little while taking it in. “I’ll do anything you like,” Mr. Touchett said at last; “but I’m not sure it’s right. You say you want to put wind in her sails; but aren’t you afraid of putting too much?”

“I should like to see her going before the breeze!” Ralph answered.

“You speak as if it were for your mere amusement.”

“So it is, a good deal.”

“Well, I don’t think I understand,” said Mr. Touchett with a sigh. “Young men are very different from what I was. When I cared for a girl—when I was young—I wanted to do more than look at her.”

“You’ve scruples that I shouldn’t have had, and you’ve ideas that I shouldn’t have had either. You say Isabel wants to be free, and that her being rich will keep her from marrying for money. Do you think that she’s a girl to do that?”

“By no means. But she has less money than she has ever had before. Her father then gave her everything, because he used to spend his capital. She has nothing but the crumbs of that feast to live on, and she doesn’t really know how meagre they are—she has yet to learn it. My mother has told me all about it. Isabel will learn it when she’s really thrown upon the world, and it would be very painful to me to think of her coming to the consciousness of a lot of wants she should be unable to satisfy.”

“I’ve left her five thousand pounds. She can satisfy a good many wants with that.”

“She can indeed. But she would probably spend it in two or three years.”

“You think she’d be extravagant then?”

“Most certainly,” said Ralph, smiling serenely.

Poor Mr. Touchett’s acuteness was rapidly giving place to pure confusion. “It would merely be a question of time then, her spending the larger sum?”

“No—though at first I think she’d plunge into that pretty freely: she’d probably make over a part of it to each of her sisters. But after that she’d come to her senses, remember she has still a lifetime before her, and live within her means.”

“Well, you have worked it out,” said the old man helplessly. “You do take an interest in her, certainly.”

“You can’t consistently say I go too far. You wished me to go further.”

“Well, I don’t know,” Mr. Touchett answered. “I don’t think I enter into your spirit. It seems to me immoral.”

“Immoral, dear daddy?”

“Well, I don’t know that it’s right to make everything so easy for a person.”

“It surely depends upon the person. When the person’s good, your making things easy is all to the credit of virtue. To facilitate the execution of good impulses, what can be a nobler act?”

This was a little difficult to follow, and Mr. Touchett considered it for a while. At last he said: “Isabel’s a sweet young thing; but do you think she’s so good as that?”

“She’s as good as her best opportunities,” Ralph returned.

“Well,” Mr. Touchett declared, “she ought to get a great many opportunities for sixty thousand pounds.”

“I’ve no doubt she will.”

“Of course I’ll do what you want,” said the old man. “I only want to understand it a little.”

“Well, dear daddy, don’t you understand it now?” his son caressingly asked. “If you don’t we won’t take any more trouble about it. We’ll leave it alone.”

Mr. Touchett lay a long time still. Ralph supposed he had given up the attempt to follow. But at last, quite lucidly, he began again. “Tell me this first. Doesn’t it occur to you that a young lady with sixty thousand pounds may fall a victim to the fortune-hunters?”

“She’ll hardly fall a victim to more than one.”