"Ah, do draw me out!" Ralph exclaimed. "So few people will take the trouble."
Miss Stackpole, in this undertaking, appeared to shrink from no effort; resorting largely, whenever the opportunity offered, to the natural expedient of interrogation. On the following day the weather was bad, and in the afternoon the young man, by way of providing indoor amusement, offered to show her the pictures. Henrietta strolled through the long gallery in his society, while he pointed out its principal ornaments and mentioned the painters and subjects.Miss Stackpole looked at the pictures in perfect silence, committing herself to no opinion, and Ralph was grati昀ed by the fact that she delivered herself of none of the little ready-made ejaculations of delight of which the visitors to Gardencourt were so frequently lavish. This young lady indeed, to do her justice, was but little addicted to the use of conventional terms;there was something earnest and inventive in her tone,which at times, in its strained deliberation, suggested a person of high culture speaking a foreign language.Ralph Touchett subsequently learned that she had at one time of昀ciated as art critic to a journal of the other world; but she appeared, in spite of this fact, to carry in her pocket none of the small change of admiration.Suddenly, just after he had called her attention to a charming Constable, she turned and looked at him as if he himself had been a picture.