Chapter 29

CHAPTER XXIX

Ralph Touchett, in talk with his excellent friend, had rather
markedly qualified, as we know, his recognition of Gilbert
Osmond's personal merits; but he might really have felt himself
illiberal in the light of that gentleman's conduct during the
rest of the visit to Rome. Osmond spent a portion of each day
with Isabel and her companions, and ended by affecting them as
the easiest of men to live with. Who wouldn't have seen that he
could command, as it were, both tact and gaiety?--which perhaps
was exactly why Ralph had made his old-time look of superficial
sociability a reproach to him. Even Isabel's invidious kinsman
was obliged to admit that he was just now a delightful associate.
His good humour was imperturbable, his knowledge of the right
fact, his production of the right word, as convenient as the
friendly flicker of a match for your cigarette. Clearly he was
amused--as amused as a man could be who was so little ever
surprised, and that made him almost applausive. It was not that
his spirits were visibly high--he would never, in the concert of
pleasure, touch the big drum by so much as a knuckle: he had a
mortal dislike to the high, ragged note, to what he called random
ravings. He thought Miss Archer sometimes of too precipitate a
readiness. It was pity she had that fault, because if she had
not had it she would really have had none; she would have been
as smooth to his general need of her as handled ivory to the
palm. If he was not personally loud, however, he was deep, and
during these closing days of the Roman May he knew a complacency
that matched with slow irregular walks under the pines of the
Villa Borghese, among the small sweet meadow-flowers and the
mossy marbles. He was pleased with everything; he had never
before been pleased with so many things at once. Old impressions,
old enjoyments, renewed themselves; one evening, going home to
his room at the inn, he wrote down a little sonnet to which he
prefixed the title of "Rome Revisited." A day or two later he
showed this piece of correct and ingenious verse to Isabel,
explaining to her that it was an Italian fashion to commemorate
the occasions of life by a tribute to the muse.

He took his pleasures in general singly; he was too often--he
would have admitted that--too sorely aware of something wrong,
something ugly; the fertilising dew of a conceivable felicity too
seldom descended on his spirit. But at present he was happy--
happier than he had perhaps ever been in his life, and the
feeling had a large foundation. This was simply the sense of
success--the most agreeable emotion of the human heart. Osmond
had never had too much of it; in this respect he had the
irritation of satiety, as he knew