"I hope you had a pleasant ride," said Isabel, who observed her companion＇s hesitancy.
"It would have been pleasant if for nothing else than that it brought me here."
"Are you so fond of Gardencourt?" the girl asked,more and more sure that he meant to make some appeal to her; wishing not to challenge him if he hesitated, and yet to keep all the quietness of her reason if he proceeded. It suddenly came upon her that her situation was one which a few weeks ago she would have deemed deeply romantic: the park of an old English country-house, with the foreground embellished by a "great" (as she supposed) nobleman in the act of making love to a young lady who,on careful inspection, should be found to present remarkable analogies with herself. But if she was now the heroine of the situation she succeeded scarcely the less in looking at it from the outside.
