On her way back to her room she found the Countess Gemini standing in the open doorway of a little parlour in which a small collection of heterogeneous books had been arranged. The Countess had an open volume in her hand; she appeared to have been glancing down a page which failed to strike her as interesting. At the sound of Isabel's step she raised her head.
"Ah my dear," she said, "you, who are so literary, do tell me some amusing book to read! Everything here is so fearfully edifying. Do you think this would do me any good?"
Isabel glanced at the title of the volume she held out, but without reading or understanding it. "I am afraid I can't advise you. I have had bad news. My cousin, Ralph Touchett, is dying."
The Countess threw down her book. "Ah, he was so nice! I am sorry for you," she said.
"You would be sorrier still if you knew."
"What is there to know? You look very badly," the Countess added. "You must have been with Osmond."
Half-an-hour before, Isabel would have listened very coldly to an intimation that she should ever feel a desire for the sympathy of her sister-in-law and there can be no better proof of her present embarrassment than the fact that she almost clutched at this lady's fluttering attention. "I have been with Osmond," she said, while the Countess's bright eyes glittered at her.
"I am sure he has been odious!" the Countess cried. "Did he say he was glad poor Mr. Touchett is dying?"
"He said it is impossible I should go to England."
The Countess's mind, when her interests were concerned, was agile; she already foresaw the extinction of any further brightness in her visit to Rome. Ralph Touchett would die, Isabel
