 Chapter 34 of The Portrait of a Lady One morning, on her return from her drive, some half hour before luncheon, she quitted her vehicle in the court of the palace, and, instead of ascending the great staircase, crossed the court, passed beneath another archway, and entered the garden. A sweeter spot at this moment could not have been imagined. The stillness of noontide hung over it, and the warm shade, enclosed and still, made bowers like spacious caves. Off was sitting there in a clear gloom, at the base of a statue of Terpsichore, a dancing nymph with taper fingers and inflated draperies in the manner of Bernini. The extreme relaxation of his attitude suggested at first to Isabel that he was asleep. Her light footstep on the grass had not roused him, and before turning away she stood for a moment looking at him. During this instant he opened his eyes, upon which she sat down on a rustic chair that matched with his own. Though in her irritation she had accused him of indifference, she was not blind to the fact that he had visibly had something to brood over. But she had explained his air of absence partly by the languor of his increased weakness, partly by worries connected with the property inherited from his father, the fruit of eccentric arrangements, of which Mrs. Tudjit disapproved, and which, as she had told Isabel, now encountered opposition from the other partners in the bank. He ought to have gone to England, his mother said, instead of coming to Florence. He had not been there for months and took no more interest in the bank than in the state of Patagonia. I'm sorry I wait you, Isabel said. You look too tired. I feel too tired, but I was not asleep. I was thinking of you. Are you tired of that? Very much so. It leads to nothing. The road's long, and I never arrive. What do you wish to arrive at, she put to him, closing her parasol. At the point of expressing to myself properly what I think of your engagement. Don't think too much of it, she lightly returned. Do you mean that it's none of my business? At a certain point, yes. That's the point I want to fix. I had an idea you may have found me wanting in good manners. I've never congratulated you. Of course I've noticed that. I wondered why you were silent. There have been a good many reasons. I'll tell you now, Ralph said. He pulled off his hat and laid it on the ground. Then he sat looking at her. He lent back under the protection of Bernini, his head against his marble pedestal, his arms dropped on either side of him, his hands laid upon the rests of his wide chair. He looked awkward, uncomfortable. He hesitated long. Isabel said nothing. When people were embarrassed, she was usually sorry for them, but she was determined not to help Ralph to utter a word that should not be to the honour of her high decision. I think I've hardly got over my surprise, he went on at last. You were the last person I expected to see caught. I don't know why you call it caught, because you're going to be put into a cage. If I like my cage, that needn't trouble you, she answered. That's what I wonder at. That's what I've been thinking of. If you've been thinking, you may imagine how I've thought. I'm satisfied that I'm doing well. You must have changed immensely. A year ago you valued your liberty beyond everything, you wanted only to see life. I've seen it, said Isabel. It doesn't look to me now, I admit, such an inviting expanse. I don't pretend it is, only I had an idea that you took a genial view of it and wanted to survey the whole field. I've seen that one can't do anything so general. One must choose a corner and cultivate that. That's what I think, and one must choose as good a corner as possible. I had no idea all winter while I read your delightful letters that you were choosing. You said nothing about it, and your silence put me off my guard. It was not a matter I was likely to write to you about. Besides, I knew nothing of the future. It has all come lately. If you had been on your guard, however, Isabel asked, what would you have done? I should have said, wait a little longer. Wait for what? Well, for a little more light, said Rao, with rather an absurd smile, while his hands found their way into his pockets. Where should my light have come from, from you? I might have struck a spark or two. Isabel had drawn off her gloves. She smoothed them out as they lay upon her knee. The mildness of this movement was accidental, for her expression was not concilatory. Before beating about the bush-routh, you wished to say you don't like Mr Osmond, and yet you're afraid. Willing to wound and yet afraid to strike. I'm willing to wound him, yes, but not to wound you. I'm afraid of you, not of him. If you marry him, it won't be a fortunate way for me to have spoken. If I marry him, have you had any expectation of dissuading me? Of course, that seems to you too factuous. You know, said Isabel, after a little, it seems to me too touching. That's the same thing. It makes me so ridiculous that you pity me. She stroked out her long gloves again. I know you have a great affection for me. I can't get rid of that. For heaven's sake, don't try. Keep that well in sight. It will convince you how intensely I want you to do well. And how little you trust me. There was a moment of silence. The warm, noontide seemed to listen. I trust you, but I don't trust him, said Rao. She raised her eyes and gave him a wide, deep look. You've said it now, and I'm glad you've made it so clear, but you'll suffer by it. Not if you're just. I'm very just, said Isabel. What better proof of it can there be than that I'm not angry with you? I don't know what's the matter with me, but I'm not. I was when you began, but it has passed away. Perhaps I ought to be angry, but Mr Osmond wouldn't think so. He wants me to know everything. That's what I like him for. You've nothing to gain. I know that. I've never been so nice to you, as a girl, that you should have much reason for wishing me to remain one. You give very good advice. You've often done so. No, I'm very quiet. I've always believed in your wisdom, she went on, boasting of her quietness. Yet speaking with a kind of contained exaltation. It was her passionate desire to be just. It touched Ralph to the heart, affected him like a caress from a creature he had injured. He wished to interrupt, to reassure her. For a moment he was absurdly inconsistent. He would have retracted what he had said. But she gave him no chance. She went on, having caught a glimpse, as she thought of the heroic line, and desiring to advance in that direction. I see you've some special idea. I should like very much to hear it. I'm sure it's disinterested. I feel that. It seems a strange thing to argue about, and of course I ought to tell you definitely that if you expect to dissuade me, you may give it up. You'll not move me an inch. It's too late. As you say, I'm caught. Certainly it won't be pleasant for you to remember this, but your pain will be in your own thoughts. I shall never reproach you. I don't think you ever will, said Ralph. It's not in the least the sort of marriage I thought you'd make. What sort of marriage was that, pray? Well, I can hardly say. I hadn't exactly a positive view of it, but I had a negative. I didn't think you'd decide for—well, for that type. What's the matter with Mr. Osmond's type, if it be one? His being so independent, so individual, is what I most see in him, the girl declared. What do you know against him? You know him scarcely at all. Yes, Ralph said. I know him very little, and I confess I haven't facts and items to prove him a villain, but all the same I can't help feeling that you're running a grave risk. Marriage is always a grave risk, and his risk's as grave as mine. That's his affair. If he's afraid, let him back out. I wish to God he would. Isabelle reclined in her chair, folding her arms, and gazing a while at her cousin. I don't think I understand you, she said at last, coldly. I don't know what you're talking about. I believed you'd marry a man of more importance. Cold, I say, her tone had been, but this a colour like a flame leapt into her face, of more importance to whom? He seems to me enough that one's husband should be of importance to one's self. Ralph blushed as well. His attitude embarrassed him. Physically speaking, he proceeded to change it. He straightened himself, then lent forward, resting a hand on each knee. He fixed his eyes on the ground. He had an air of the most respectful deliberation. I'll tell you in a moment what I mean, he presently said. Ralph felt agitated, intensely eager, now that he had opened the discussion. He wished to discharge his mind, but he wished also to be superlatively gentle. Isabelle waited a little, then she went on with majesty. In everything that makes one care for people, Mr. Osmond is preeminent. There may be nobler natures, but I've never had the pleasure of meeting one. Mr. Osmond's is the finest I know. He's good enough for me, and interesting enough, and clever enough. I'm far more struck with what he has and what he represents than with what he may lack. I had treated myself to a charming vision of your future, Ralph observed, without answering this. I had amused myself with planning out a high destiny for you. There was to be nothing of this sort in it. You were not to come down so easily or so soon. Come down, you say? Well that renders my sense of what has happened to you. You seem to me to be soaring far up in the blue, to be sailing in the bright light over the heads of men. Suddenly someone tosses up a faded rosebud, a missile that should never have reached you, and straight you drop to the ground. It hurts me, said Ralph audaciously, hurts me as if I had fallen myself. The look of pain and bewilderment deepened in his companion's face. I don't understand you in the least, she repeated. You say you amused yourself with a project for my career, I don't understand that. Don't amuse yourself too much, or I shall think you're doing it at my expense." Ralph shook his head. I'm not afraid of your not believing that I've had great ideas for you. What do you mean by my soaring and sailing, she pursued? I've never moved on a higher plane than I'm moving on now. There's nothing higher for a girl than to marry a—a person she likes, said poor Roosevelt, wandering into the didactic. It's your liking the person we speak of that I venture to criticise, my dear cousin. I should have said that the man for you would have been a more active, larger, freer sort of nature. Ralph hesitated, then added, I can't get over the sense that Osmond is somehow, well, small. He had uttered the last word with no great assurance. He was afraid she would flash out again. But to his surprise she was quiet. She had the air of considering. Small! She made it sound immense. I think he's narrow, selfish. He takes himself so seriously. He has a great respect for himself, I don't blame him for that, said Isabelle. He makes one more sure to respect others. Ralph for a moment felt almost reassured by her reasonable tone. Yes, but everything is relative. One ought to feel one's relation to things, to others. I don't think Mr. Osmond does that. I've chiefly to do with his relation to me. In that, he's excellent. He's the incarnation of taste, Ralph went on, thinking hard how he could best express Gilbert Osmond's sinister attributes without putting himself in the wrong by seeming to describe him coarsely. He wished to describe him impersonally, scientifically. He judges and measures, approves and condemns, all together by that. It's a happy thing, then, that his taste should be exquisite. It's exquisite, indeed, since it has led him to select you as his bride. But have you ever seen such a taste, a really exquisite one, ruffled? I hope it may never be my fortune to fail to gratify my husbands. But these words are sudden passion, leapt to Ralph's lips. Ah, that's willful, that's unworthy of you. You were not meant to be measured in that way. You were meant for something better than to keep guard over the sensibilities of a sterile dilettante. Isabelle rose quickly, and he did the same, so that they stood for a moment looking at each other as if he had flung down a defiance or an insult. But you go too far, she simply breathed. I've said what I had on my mind, and I've said it because I love you. Isabelle turned pale. Was he, too, on that tiresome list? She had a sudden wish to strike him off. Ah, then, you're not disinterested. I love you, but I love without hope," said Ralph quickly, forcing a smile and feeling that in that last declaration he had expressed more than he intended. Isabelle moved away and stood looking into the sunny stillness of the garden. But after a little she turned back to him. I'm afraid your talk, then, is the wildness of despair. I don't understand it, but it doesn't matter. I'm not arguing with you. It's impossible I should. I've only tried to listen to you. I much obliged you for attempting to explain," she said gently, as if the anger with which she had just sprung up had already subsided. It's very good of you to try to warn me, if you're really alarmed. But I won't promise to think of what you've said. I shall forget it as soon as possible. Try and forget it yourself. You've done your duty, and no man can do more. I can't explain to you what I feel, what I believe, and I wouldn't, if I could. She paused a moment and then went on, with an inconsequence that Ralph observed, even in the midst of his eagerness, to discover some symptom of concession. I can't enter into your idea of Mr. Osmond. I can't do it justice, because I see him in quite another way. He's not important. No, he's not important. He's a man to whom importance is supremely indifferent. If that's what you mean when you call him small, then he's as small as you please. I call that large. It's the largest thing I know. I won't pretend to argue with you about a person I'm going to marry," Isabelle repeated. I'm not in the least concerned to defend Mr. Osmond. He's not so weak as to need my defence. I should think it would seem strange, even to yourself, that I should talk of him so quietly and coldly, as if he were anyone else. I wouldn't talk of him at all to anyone but you, and you, after what you've said, I may just answer you once for all. Pray, would you wish me to make a mercenary marriage, what they call a marriage of ambition? I've only one ambition—to be free to follow out a good feeling. I had others once, but they've passed away. Do you complain of Mr. Osmond, because he's not rich? That's just what I like him for. I've fortunately money enough. I've never felt so thankful for it as today. There have been moments when I should like to go and kneel down by your father's grave. He did perhaps a better thing than he knew when he put into my power to marry a poor man, a man who was born his poverty with such dignity, with such indifference. Mr. Osmond has never scrambled nor struggled. He has cared for no worldly prize. If that's to be narrow, if that's to be selfish, then it's very well. I'm not frightened by such words. I'm not even displeased. I'm only sorry that you should make a mistake. Others might have done so, but I'm surprised that you should. You might know a gentleman when you see one. You might know a fine mind. Mr. Osmond makes no mistakes. He knows everything. He understands everything. He has the kindest, gentlest, highest spirit. You've got hold of some false idea. It's a pity, but I can't help it. It regards you more than me." Isabel paused a moment, looking at her cousin with an eye illumined by a sentiment which contradicted the careful calmness of her manner, a mingled sentiment to which the angry pain excited by his words and the wounded pride of having needed to justify the choice of which she felt only the nobleness and purity equally contributed. Though she paused, Ralph said nothing. He saw she had more to say. She was grand, but she was highly solicitous. She was indifferent, but she was all in a passion. What sort of a person should you have liked me to marry? She asked suddenly. You talk about one's soaring and sailing, but if one marries at all, one touches the earth, one has human feelings and needs, one has a heart in one's bosom, and one must marry a particular individual. Your mother has never forgiven me for not having come to a better understanding with Lord Warburton, and she's horrified at my contenting myself with a person who has none of his great advantages—no property, no title, no honours, no houses, nor lands, nor position, nor reputation, nor brilliant belongings of any sort. It's the total absence of these things that pleases me. Mr. Osmond simply a very lonely, a very cultivated, and a very honest man. He's not a prodigious proprietor. Ralfa listened with great attention, as if everything she said merited deep consideration, but in truth he was only half thinking of the things she said. He was, for the rest, simply accommodating himself to the weight of his total impression—the impression of her ardent good faith. She was wrong, but she believed. She was deluded, but she was dismally consistent. It was wonderfully characteristic of her that, having invented a fine theory about Gilbert Osmond, she loved him not for what he really possessed, but for his very poverties dressed out as honours. Ralf remembered what he had said to his father about wishing to put it into her power to meet the requirements of her imagination. He had done so, and the girl had taken full advantage of the luxury. Poor Ralf felt sick. He felt ashamed. Isabelle had uttered her last words with a low solemnity of conviction, which virtually terminated the discussion, and she closed it formally by turning away and walking back to the house. Ralf walked beside her, and they passed into the court together and reached the big staircase. Here he stopped, and Isabelle paused, turning on him a face of elation, absolutely and perversely of gratitude. His opposition had made her own conception of her conduct clearer to her. Shall you not come up to breakfast, she asked? No, I want no breakfast. I'm not hungry. You ought to eat, said the girl. You live on air. I do very much, and I shall go back into the garden and take another mouthful. I came thus far simply to say this. I told you last year that if you were to get into trouble, I should feel terribly sold. That's how I feel today. Do you think I'm in trouble? One's in trouble when one's in error. Very well said Isabelle, I shall never complain of my trouble to you." And she moved up the staircase. Ralf, standing there with his hands in his pockets, followed her with his eyes. Then the lurking chill of the high-walled court struck him, and made him shiver, so that he returned to the garden to breakfast on the Florentine sunshine. End of chapter 34, section 8, being chapter 35 of the Portrait of a Lady, Volume 2. The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James, Volume 2, chapter 35. Isabelle, when she strolled in the caschine with her lover, felt no impulse to tell him how little he was approved at Palazzo Crescentini. The discreet opposition offered to her marriage by her aunt and her cousin, made on the whole no great impression upon her. The moral of it was simply that they disliked Gilbert Osmond. This dislike was not alarming to Isabelle. She scarcely even regretted it, for it served mainly to throw into higher relief the fact, in every way so honourable, that she married to please herself. One did other things to please other people. One did this for a more personal satisfaction, and Isabelle's satisfaction was confirmed by her lover's admirable good conduct. Gilbert Osmond was in love, and he had never deserved less than during these still bright days, each of them numbered, which preceded the fulfilment of his hopes. The harsh criticism passed upon him by Ralph Touchit. The chief impression produced on Isabelle's spirit by this criticism was that the passion of love separated its victim terribly from everyone but the loved object. She felt herself disjoined from everyone she had ever known before, from her two sisters, who wrote to express a dutiful hope that she would be happy, and a surprise somewhat more vague, at her not having chosen a consort who was the hero of a richer accumulation of anecdote, from Henrietta, who she was sure would come out too late on purpose to remonstrate, from Lord Warburton, who would certainly consult himself, and from Casper Goodwood, who perhaps would not, from her aunt, who had cold shallow ideas about marriage, for which she was not sorry to display her contempt, and from Ralph, whose talk about having great views for her was surely but a whimsical cover for a personal disappointment. Ralph apparently wished her not to marry at all, that was what it really meant, because he was amused with the spectacle of her adventures as a single woman. Her disappointment made him say angry things about the man she had preferred even to him. Ralph flattered herself that she believed Ralph had been angry. It was the more easy for her to believe this, because, as I say, she had now little free or unemployed emotion for minor needs, and accepted as an incident, in fact quite as an ornament of her lot, the idea that to prefer Gilbert Osmond as she preferred him, was perforce to break all other ties. She tasted of the sweets of this preference, and they made her conscious, almost with awe, of the invidious and remorseless tide of the charmed and possessed condition, great as was the traditional honour and imputed virtue of being in love. It was the tragic part of happiness, one's right was always made of the wrong of someone else. The elation of success, which surely now flamed high in Osmond, emitted meanwhile very little smoke for so brilliant a blaze. Excitement on his part took no vulgar form. Excitement in the most self-conscious of men was a kind of ecstasy of self-control. This disposition, however, made him an admirable lover. It gave him a constant view of the smitten and dedicated state. He never forgot himself, as I say, and so he never forgot to be graceful and tender, to wear the appearance, which presented indeed no difficulty, of stirred senses and deep intentions. He was immensely pleased with his young lady. Madam Mail had made him a present of incalculable value. What could be a finer thing to live with than a high spirit attuned to softness, for would not the softness be all for oneself, and the strenuousness for society, which admired the air of superiority? What could be a happier gift in a companion, than a quick fanciful mind which saved one's repetitions, and reflected one's thought on a polished, elegant surface? Osmond hated to see his thought reproduced literally. That made it look stale and stupid. He preferred it to be freshened in the reproduction, even as words by music. His egotism had never taken the crude form of desiring a dull wife. This lady's intelligence was to be a silver plate, not an earthen one, a plate that he might heap up with ripe fruits, to which it would give a decorative value, so that talk might become for him a sort of served dessert. He found the silver quality in this perfection in Isabelle. He could tap her imagination with his knuckle, and make it ring. He knew perfectly, though he had not been told, that their union enjoyed little favour with the girl's relations. But he had always treated her so completely as an independent person, that it hardly seemed necessary to express regret for the attitude of her family. Nevertheless one morning he made an abrupt allusion to it. It's the difference in our fortune they don't like, he said. They think I'm in love with your money. Are you speaking of my aunt, of my cousin, Isabelle asked? How do you know what they think? You've not told me they're pleased, and when I wrote to Mrs. Touchit the other day, she never answered my note. If they had been delighted, I should have had some sign of it, and the fact of my being poor and you rich is the most obvious explanation of their reserve. But of course, when a poor man marries a rich girl, he must be prepared for imputations. I don't mind them, I only care for one thing, for you're not having the shadow of a doubt. I don't care what people of whom I ask nothing think. I'm not even capable, perhaps, of wanting to know. I've never so concerned myself, God forgive me, and why should I begin today, when I have taken to myself a compensation for everything? I won't pretend I'm sorry you're rich, I'm delighted. I delight in everything that's yours, whether it be money or virtue. Money's a horrid thing to follow, but a charming thing to meet. It seems to me, however, that I've sufficiently proved the limits of my itch for it. I never in my life tried to earn a penny, and I ought to be less subject to suspicion than most of the people one sees grubbing and grabbing. I suppose it's their business to suspect, that of your family. It's proper on the whole they should, they'll like me better some day, so will you, for that matter. Meanwhile, my business is not to make myself bad blood, but simply to be thankful for life and love. It has made me better loving you, he said on another occasion. It has made me wiser and easier, and I won't pretend to deny, brighter and nicer and even stronger. I used to want to grate many things before, and to be angry I didn't have them. Theoretically, I was satisfied as I once told you. I flattered myself I had limited my wants. But I was subject to irritation. I used to have morbid, sterile, hateful fits of hunger, of desire. Now I'm really satisfied, because I can't think of anything better. It's just as when one has been trying to spell out a book in the twilight, and suddenly the lamp comes on. I had been putting out my eyes over the book of life, and finding nothing to reward me for my pains. But now that I can read it properly, I see it's a delightful story. My dear girl, I can't tell you how life seems to stretch there before us. What a long summer afternoon awaits us. It's the latter half of an Italian day, with a golden haze and the shadows just lengthening. And that divine delicacy in the light, the air, the landscape, which I have loved all my life, and which you love today. Upon my honour, I don't see why we shouldn't get on. We've got what we like, to say nothing of having each other. We've the faculty of admiration, and several capital convictions. We're not stupid. We're not mean. We're not under bonds to any kind of ignorance or dreariness. You're remarkably fresh, and I'm remarkably well-seasoned. We've my poor child to amuse us. We'll try and make up some little life for her. It's all soft and mellow. It has the Italian colouring. They made a good many plans, but they left themselves also a good deal of latitude. It was a matter, of course, however, that they should live for the present in Italy. It was in Italy that they had met. Italy had been a party to their first impressions of each other, and Italy should be a party to their happiness. Osmond had the attachment of old acquaintance and Isabelle the stimulus of new, which seemed to assure her a future at a high level of consciousness of the beautiful. The desire for unlimited expansion had been succeeded in her soul by the sense that life was vacant without some private duty that might gather one's energies to a point. She had told Ralph she had seen life in a year or two, and that she was already tired, not of the act of living, but of that of observing. What had become of all her aardors, her aspirations, her theories, her high estimate of her independence, and her incipient conviction that she should never marry? These things had been absorbed in a more primitive need, a need the answer to which brushed away numberless questions, yet gratified infinite desires. It simplified the situation at a stroke. It came down from above like the light of the stars, and it needed no explanation. There was explanation enough in the fact that he was her lover, her own, and that she should be able to be of use to him. She could surrender to him with a kind of humility. She could marry him with a kind of pride. She was not only taking, she was giving. He brought Pansy with him two or three times to the Cachine. Pansy, who was very little taller than a year before, and not much older, that she would always be a child, was the conviction expressed by her father, who held her by the hand when she was in her sixteenth year, and told her to go and play while he sat down a little with the pretty lady. Pansy wore a short dress and a long coat. Her hat always seemed too big for her. She found pleasure in walking off with quick, short steps to the end of the alley, and then in walking back with a smile that seemed an appeal for approbation. Isabella proved in abundance, and the abundance had the personal touch that the child's affection at nature craved. She watched her indications as if for herself or so much depended on them. Pansy already so represented part of the service she could render, part of the responsibility she could face. Her father took so the childish view of her that he had not yet explained to her the new relation in which he stood to the elegant Miss Archer. "'She doesn't know,' he said to Isabelle. She doesn't guess. She thinks it perfectly natural that you and I should come and walk here together simply as good friends. There seems to me something enchantingly innocent in that. That's the way I like her to be. No, I'm not a failure, as I used to think. I've succeeded in two things. I'm to marry the woman I adore, and I've brought up my child as I wished, in the old way.'" He was very fond in all things of the old way. That had struck Isabelle as one of his fine, quiet, sincere notes. It occurs to me that you'll not know whether you've succeeded until you've told her, she said. You must see how she takes your news. She may be horrified. She may be jealous. I'm not afraid of that. She's too fond of you on her own account. I should like to leave her in the dark a little longer, to see if it will come into her head that if we're not engaged we ought to be." Isabelle was impressed by Osmond's artistic, the plastic view as it somehow appeared of Pansy's innocence, her own appreciation of it being more anxiously moral. She was perhaps not the less pleased when he told her a few days later that he had communicated the fact to his daughter, who had made such a pretty little speech, �Oh, then I shall have a beautiful sister!� She was neither surprised nor alarmed. She had not cried, as he expected. �Perhaps she had guessed it,� said Isabelle. �Don't say that. I should be disgusted if I believe that. I thought it would be just a little shock, but the way she took it proves that her good manners are paramount. That's also what I wished. �You shall see for yourself. Tomorrow she shall make you her congratulations in person.� The meeting on the morrow took place at the Countess's Germanys, where the Pansy had been conducted by her father, who knew that Isabelle was to come in the afternoon to return a visit made her by the Countess on learning that they were to become sisters-in-law. Looking at Casa Touchit, the visitor had not found Isabelle at home, but after our young woman had been ushered into the Countess's drawing-room, Pansy arrived to say that her aunt would presently appear. Pansy was spending the day with that lady, who thought her of an age to begin to learn how to carry herself in company. It was Isabelle's view that the little girl might have given lessons in deportment to her relative, and nothing could have justified this conviction more than the manner in which Pansy acquitted herself while they waited together for the Countess. Her father's decision the year before had finally been to send her back to the convent to receive the last graces, and Madame Catherine had evidently carried out her theory that Pansy was to be fitted for the great world. �Papa has told me that you've kindly consented to marry him,� said this excellent woman's pupil. �It's very delightful. I think you'll suit very well.� �You think I shall suit you? You'll suit me beautifully, but what I mean is that you and Papa will suit each other. You're both so quiet and so serious. You're not so quiet as he, or even as Madame Mail, but you're more quiet than many others. He should not, for instance, have a wife like my aunt. She's always in motion, in agitation, today especially, you'll see when she comes in. They told us at the convent it was wrong to judge our elders. But I suppose there's no harm if we judge them favorably. You'll be a delightful companion for Papa. �For you, too, I hope�, Isabel said. �I speak first of him on purpose. I've told you already what I myself think of you. I liked you from the first. I admire you so much that I think it will be a good fortune to have you always before me. You'll be my model. I shall try to imitate you, though I'm afraid it will be very feeble. I'm very glad for Papa. He needed something more than me. Without you, I don't see how he could have got it. You'll be my stepmother, but we mustn't use that word. They're always said to be cruel. But I don't think you'll ever so much as pinch or even push me. I'm not afraid at all. �My good little pansy,� said Isabel gently, �I shall be ever so kind to you�. A vague, inconsequent vision of her coming in some odd way to need it had intervened with the effect of a chill. Very well, then, I've nothing to fear� the child returned with her note of prepared promptitude. What teaching she had had, it seemed, to suggest, or what penalties for non-performance she dreaded. Her description of her aunt had not been incorrect. The Countess Gemini was further than ever from having folded her wings. She entered the room with a flutter through the air, and kissed Isabel first on the forehead, and then on each cheek, as if according to some ancient prescribed right. She drew the visitor to a sofa, and looking at her with a variety of turns of the head, began to talk very much as if seated brush in hand before an easel. She were applying a series of considered touches to a composition of figures already sketched in. �If you expect me to congratulate you, I must beg you to excuse me. I don't suppose you care if I do or not. I believe you're supposed not to care, through being so clever, for all sorts of ordinary things, but I care myself if I tell fibs, unless there's something rather good to be gained. I don't see what's to be gained with you, especially as you wouldn't believe me. I don't make professions any more than I make paper flowers or flouncy lampshades. I don't know how. My lampshades would be sure to take fire, my roses and my fibs, to be larger than life. I'm very glad for my own sake that you're to marry Osmond, but I won't pretend I'm glad for yours. You're very brilliant. You know that's the way you're always spoken of. You're an heiress, and very good-looking, and original, not banal. So it's a good thing to have you in the family. Our family's very good, you know. Osmond will have told you that, and my mother was rather distinguished. She was called the American Corinne, but we're dreadfully fallen, I think, and perhaps you'll pick us up. I have great confidence in you. There are ever so many things I want to talk to you about. I never congratulate any girl on marrying. I think they ought to make it somehow not quite so awful a steel trap. I suppose Pansy oughtn't to hear all this, but that's what she has come to me for, to acquire the tone of society. There's no harm in her knowing what horrors she may be in for. When first I got an idea that my brother had designs on you, I thought of writing to you to recommend you, in the strongest terms, not to listen to him. Then I thought it would be disloyal, and I hate anything of that kind. Besides, as I say, I was enchanted for myself, and after all, I'm very selfish. By the way, you won't respect me, not one little might, and we shall never be intimate. I should like it, but you won't. Someday all the same, we shall be better friends than you will believe at first. My husband will come and see you, though. As you probably know, he's on no sort of terms with Osmond. He's very fond of going to see pretty women, but I'm not afraid of you. In the first place, I don't care what he does. In the second, you won't care a straw for him. He won't be a bit at any time, your affair, and stupid as he is, he'll see you're not his. Someday if you can stand it, I'll tell you all about him. Do you think my niece ought to go out of the room? Pansy, go and practice a little in my boudoir. Let her stay, please, said Isabel. I would rather hear nothing that Pansy may not. End of Chapter 35. The Portrait of a Lady Volume 2 by Henry James Chapter 36 One afternoon of the autumn of 1876, towards dusk, a young man of pleasing appearance rang at the door of a small apartment on the third floor of an old Roman house. On its being opened he inquired for Madame Mail, whereupon the servant, a neat plain woman with a French face and a lady's maid's manner, ushered him into a diminutive drawing-room, and requested the favour of his name. Mr. Edward Rozier, said the young man, who sat down to wait till his hostess should appear. The reader will perhaps not have forgotten that Mr. Rozier was an ornament of the American Circle in Paris, but it may also be remembered that he sometimes vanished from its horizon. He had spent a portion of several winters at Pau, and as he was a gentleman of constituted habits, he might have continued for years to pay his annual visit to this charming resort. In the summer of 1876, however, an incident befell him which changed the current not only of his thoughts, but of his customary sequences. He passed a month in the upper Engadine, and encountered at some or its a charming young girl. To this little person he began to pay, on the spot, particular attention. She struck him as exactly the household angel he had long been looking for. He was never precipitant, he was nothing if not discreet, so he forbore for the present to declare his passion. But it seemed to him, when they parted, the young lady to go down into Italy, and her admirer to proceed to Geneva, where he was under bonds to join other friends, that he should be romantically wretched if he were not to see her again. The simplest way to do so was to go in the autumn to Rome, where Miss Osmond was domiciled with her family. Mr. Rozier started on his pilgrimage to the Italian capital, and reached it on the 1st of November. It was a pleasant thing to do, but for the young man there was a strain of the heroic in the enterprise. He might expose himself unseasoned to the poison of the Roman air, which in November lay notoriously much in wait. The fortune, however, favours the brave, and this adventurer, who took three grains of quinine a day, had at the end of a month no cause to deplore his temerity. He had made, to a certain extent, good use of his time. He had devoted it, in vain, to finding a flaw in Pansy Osmond's composition. She was admirably finished. She had had the last touch. She was really a consummate piece. He thought of her in amorous meditation a good deal as he might have thought of a Dresden-China shepherdess. Miss Osmond, indeed, in the bloom of her juvenility, had a hint of the Rococo, which Rozier, whose taste was predominantly for that manner, could not fail to appreciate. That he esteemed the productions of comparatively frivolous periods would have been apparent from the attention he bestowed upon Madame Mell's drawing-room, which, although furnished with specimens of every style, was especially rich in articles of the last two centuries. He had immediately put a glass into one eye and looked round, and then, by a jove, she had some jolly good things, he had yearningly murmured. The room was small and densely filled with furniture. It gave an impression of faded silk and little statuettes which might totter if one moved. Rozier got up and wandered about with his careful tread, bending over the tables charged with knick-knacks and the cushions embossed with princely arms. When Madame Mell came in, she found him standing before the fireplace, with his nose very close to the great lace flounce attached to the damask cover of the mantel. He had lifted it delicately, as if he were smelling it. It's old Venetian, she said. It's rather good. It's too good for this. You ought to wear it. They tell me you have some better in Paris in the same situation. Ah, but I can't wear mine, smiled the visitor. I don't see why you shouldn't. I've better lace than that to wear. His eyes wandered lingeringly round the room again. You've some very good things. Yes, but I hate them. Do you want to get rid of them, young man quickly asked? No, it's good to have something to hate. One works it off. I love my things, said Mr. Rozier, as he sat there flushed with all his recognitions. But it's not about them nor about yours that I came to talk to you. He paused a moment and then, with greater softness, I care more for Miss Osmond than for all the Biblul in Europe. Madam Mail opened wide eyes. Did you come to tell me that? I came to ask your advice. She looked at him with a friendly frown, stroking her chin with her large white hand. A man in love, you know, doesn't ask advice. Why not if he's in a difficult position? That's often the case with a man in love. I've been in love before and I know. But never so much as this time. Really never so much. I should like particularly to know what you think of my prospects. I'm afraid that for Mr. Osmond I'm not, well, a real collector's piece. Do you wish me to intercede, Madam Mail asked, with her fine arms folded and her handsome mouth drawn up to the left? If you could say a good word for me, I should be greatly obliged. There will be no use in my troubling Miss Osmond unless I have good reason to believe her father will consent. You're very considerate. That's in your favour. But you assume in rather an offhand way that I think you are prized. You've been very kind to me, said the young man. That's why I came. I'm always kind to people who have good Louis couture. It's very rare now and there's no telling what one may get by it. With which the left hand corner of Madam Mail's mouth gave expression to the joke. But he looked in spite of it literally apprehensive and consistently strenuous. Ah, I thought you liked me for myself. I like you very much, but if you please we won't analyse. Pardon me if I seem patronising, but I think you are perfect little gentleman. I must tell you, however, that I've not the marrying of Pansy Osmond. I didn't suppose that, but you've seemed to me intimate with her family, and I thought you might have influence. Madam Mail considered. Whom do you call her family? Why, her father, and, how do you say it in English, her bell-mail. Mr Osmond's her father, certainly, but his wife can scarcely be termed a member of her family. Mrs Osmond has nothing to do with marrying her. I'm sorry for that, said Rosier, with an amiable sight of good faith. I think Mrs Osmond would favour me. Very likely, if her husband doesn't. He raised his eyebrows. Does she take the opposite line from him? In everything, they think quite differently. Well, said Rosier, I'm sorry for that, but it's none of my business. She's very fond of Pansy. Yes, she's very fond of Pansy. And Pansy has a great affection for her. She has told me how she loves her as if she were her own mother. You must, after all, have had some very intimate talk with the poor child, said Madam Mail. Have you declared your sentiments? Never, cried Rosier, lifting his neatly gloved hand. Never, till I've assured myself of those of the parents. You always wait for that. You've excellent principles. You observe the proprieties. I think you're laughing at me, the young man murmured, dropping back in his chair and feeling his small moustache. I didn't expect that of you, Madam Mail. She shook her head calmly like a person who saw things as she saw them. You don't do me justice. I think you're conducting excellent taste and the best you could have dot. Yes, that's what I think. I wouldn't agitate her, only to agitate her. I love her too much for that, said Ned Rosier. I'm glad, after all, that you've told me, Madam Mail went on. Leave it to me a little. I think I can help you. I said you were the person to come to. Her visitor cried with prompt elation. You were very clever, Madam Mail returned more dryly. When I say I can help you, I mean, once assuming your cause to be good. Let us think a little, if it is. I'm awfully decent, you know, said Rosier, honestly. I won't say I've no faults, but I'll say I've no vices. All that's negative, and it always depends also on what people call vices. What's the positive side? What's the virtuous? What have you got besides your Spanish lace and your Dresden teacups? I have a comfortable little fortune, about forty thousand francs a year. With the talent I have for arranging, we can live beautifully on such an income. Beautifully, no. Sufficiently, yes. Even that depends on where you live. Well, in Paris. I would undertake it in Paris. Madam Mail's mouth rose to the left. It wouldn't be famous. You'd have to make use of the teacups, and they'd get broken. We don't want to be famous. If Miss Osmond should have everything pretty, it would be enough. When one's as pretty as she, one can afford, well, quite cheap faillances. She ought never to wear anything but muslin. Without the sprig, said Rosier, reflectively. Wouldn't you even allow her the sprig? She'd be much obliged to you at any rate for that theory. It's the correct one, I assure you, and I'm sure she'd enter into it. She understands all that. That's why I love her. She's a very good little girl, and most tidy, also extremely graceful, but her father, to the best of my belief, can give her nothing. Rosier's scarce dimmered. I don't in the least desire that he should, but I may remark all the same, that he lives like a rich man. The money's his wife's. She brought him a large fortune. Mrs. Osmond, then, is very fond of her stepdaughter. She may do something. For a love-sixth swain, you have your eyes about you, Madam Mail exclaimed with a laugh. I esteem a dalt very much. I can do without it, but I esteem it. Mrs. Osmond, Madam Mail went on, will probably prefer to keep her money for her own children. Her own children? Surely she has none. She may have yet. She had a poor little boy who died two years ago, six months after his birth. Others, therefore, may come. I hope they will if it will make her happy. She's a splendid woman. Madam Mail failed to burst into speech. Ah, about her there's much to be said, splendid as you like. We've not exactly made out that you're a party. The absence of vices is hardly a source of income. Pardon me, I think it may be, said Rosier quite lucidly. You'll be a touching couple living on your innocence. I think you underrate me. You're not so innocent as that. Seriously, said Madam Mail, of course, forty thousand francs a year and a nice character are a combination to be considered. I don't say it's to be jumped at, but there might be a worse offer. Mr. Osmond, however, will probably incline to believe he can do better. He can do so, perhaps, but what can his daughter do? She can't do better than marry the man she loves. For she does, you know, Rosier added eagerly. She does, I know it. Ah, quite the young man I said, you were the person to come to. But I don't know how you know it, if you haven't asked her, Madam Mail went on. In such a case there's no need of asking and telling, as you say we're an innocent couple. How did you know it? I, who am not innocent, by being very crafty, leave it to me, I'll find out for you. Rosier got up and stood smoothing his hat. You say that rather coldly. Don't simply find out how it is, but try to make it as it should be. I'll do my best. I'll try to make the most of your advantages. Thank you so very much. Meanwhile, then, I'll say a word to Mrs. Osmond. Garde vous en biaire. And Madam Mail was on her feet. Don't set her going, or you'll spoil everything. Rosier gazed into his hat. He wondered whether his hostess had been, after all, the right person to come to. I don't think I understand you. I'm an old friend of Mrs. Osmond, and I think she would like me to succeed. Be an old friend as much as you like. The more old friends she has, the better, for she doesn't get on very well with some of her new. But don't, for the present, try to make her take up the cudgels for you. Her husband may have other views, and as a person who wishes her well, I advise you not to multiply points of difference between them. Poor Rosier's face assumed an expression of alarm. A suit for the hand of Pansy Osmond was even a more complicated business than his taste for proper transitions had allowed. But the extreme good sense which he concealed under a surface suggesting that of a careful owner's best set came to his assistance. I don't see that I'm bound to consider Mr. Osmond so very much, he exclaimed. No, but you should consider her. You say you're an old friend. Would you make her suffer? Not for the world. Then be very careful, and let the matter alone till I've taken a few soundings. Let the matter alone, dear Madame Mail, remember that I'm in love. Oh, you won't burn up. Why did you come to me if you're not to heed what I say? You're very kind. I'll be very good, the young man promised. But I'm afraid Mr. Osmond's pretty hard, he added, in his mild voice as he went to the door. Madame Mail gave a short laugh. It has been said before, but his wife isn't easy either. Ah, she's a splendid woman, Ned Rosea repeated, for departure. He resolved that his conduct should be worthy of an aspirant who was already a model of discretion. But he saw nothing in any pledge he had given to Madame Mail that made it improper he should keep himself in spirits by an occasional visit to Miss Osmond's home. He reflected constantly on what his advisor had said to him, and turned over in his mind the impression of her rather circumspect tone. He had gone to her de confiance, as they put it in Paris, but it was possible he had been precipitant. He found difficulty in thinking of himself as rash. He had incurred this reproach so rarely, but it certainly was true that he had known Madame Mail only for the last month, and that his thinking her a delightful woman was not, when one came to look into it, a reason for assuming that she would be eager to push Pansy Osmond into his arms, gracefully arranged as these members might be to receive her. She had indeed shown him benevolence, and she was a person of consideration among the girl's people. Where she had a rather striking appearance, Rosier had more than once wondered how she managed it, of being intimate without being familiar, but possibly he had exaggerated these advantages. There was no particular reason why she should take trouble for him. A charming woman was charming to everyone, and Rosier felt rather a fool when he thought of his having appeared to her on the ground that she had distinguished him. Very likely, though she had appeared to say it in joke, she was really only thinking of his Biblical. Had it come into her head that he might offer her two or three of the gems of his collection, if she would only help him to marry Miss Osmond, he would present her with his whole museum. He could hardly say so to her outright. It would seem too gross a bribe, but he should like her to believe it. It was with these thoughts that he went again to Mrs. Osmond's, Mrs. Osmond having an evening, she had taken the Thursday of each week, when his presence could be accounted for on general principles of civility. The object of Mr. Rosier's well-regulated affection dwelt in a high house in the very heart of Rome, a dark and massive structure overlooking a sunny Piazzetta in the neighbourhood of the Farnese Palace, in a palace too little pansy lived, a palace by Roman measure, but a dungeon to pour Rosier's apprehensive mind. It seemed to him of evil omen that the young lady he wished to marry, and whose fastidious father he doubted of his ability to conciliate, should be immured in a kind of domestic fortress, a pile which bore a stern old Roman name, which smelt of historic deeds, of crime and craft and violence, which was mentioned in Murray, and visited by tourists who looked on a vague survey, disappointed and depressed, and which had frescoes by Caravaggio in the Piano Nobile, and a row of mutilated statues and dusty urns in the wide, nobly arched lodger, overhanging the damp court where a fountain gushed out of a mossy niche. In a less preoccupied frame of mind he could have done justice to the Palazzo Rocanera, he could have entered into the sentiment of Mrs. Osmond, who had once told him that on settling themselves in Rome, she and her husband had chosen this habitation for the love of local colour. It had local colour enough, and though he knew less about architecture than about limose enamels, he could see that the proportion of the windows and even the details of the cornice had quite the grand air. But Rosier was haunted by the conviction that at picturesque periods young girls had been shut up there to keep them from their true loves, and then, under the threat of being thrown into convents, had been forced into unholy marriages. There was one point, however, to which he always did justice when once he found himself in Mrs. Osmond's warm, rich-looking reception rooms which were on the second floor. He acknowledged that these people were very strong in good things. It was a taste of Osmond's own, not at all of hers. This she had told him the first time he came to the house, when, after asking himself for a quarter of an hour whether they had even better French than he in Paris, he was obliged on the spot to admit that they had very much, and vanquished his envy, as a gentleman should, to the point of expressing to his hostess his pure admiration of her treasures. He learnt from Mrs. Osmond that her husband had made a large collection before their marriage, and that, though he had annexed a number of fine pieces within the last three years, he had achieved his greatest fines at a time when he had not the advantage of her advice. Rosier interpreted this information according to principles of his own. For advice, read Cash, he said to himself, and the fact that Gilbert Osmond had landed his highest prizes during his impecunious season, confirmed his most cherished doctrine, the doctrine that a collector may freely be poor if he be only patient. In general, when Rosier presented himself on a Thursday evening, his first recognition was for the walls of the saloon. There were three or four objects his eyes really yearned for. But after his talk with Madame Mail, he felt the extreme seriousness of his position, and now, when he came in, he looked about for the daughter of the house, with such eagerness as might be permitted a gentleman whose smile, as he crossed a threshold, always took everything comfortable for granted. End of Chapter 36 The Portrait of a Lady, Volume 2, Chapter 37 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For further information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Portrait of a Lady, Volume 2, by Henry James, Chapter 37 Pansy was not in the first of the rooms, a large apartment with a concave ceiling and walls covered with old red damask. It was here that Mrs. Osmond usually sat, though she was not in her most customy place tonight, and that a circle of more especial intimates gathered about the fire. The room was flushed with subdued, diffused brightness. It contained the larger things, and, almost always, an odour of flowers. Pansy, on this occasion, was presumably in the next of the series, the result of younger visitors, where tea was served. Osmond stood before the chimney, leaning back with his hands behind him. He had one foot up and was warming the soul. Half a dozen persons, scattered near him, were talking together, but he was not in the conversation. His eyes had an expression, frequent with them, that seemed to represent them as engaged with objects more worth their while than the appearances actually thrust upon them. Rosier, coming in unannounced, failed to attract his attention, but the young man, who was very punctilious, though he was even exceptionally conscious that it was the wife, not the husband, he had come to see, went up to shake hands with him. Osmond put out his left hand, without changing his attitude. How did you do, my wife somewhere about? Never fear, I shall find her, said Rosier cheerfully. Osmond, however, took him in. He had never in his life felt himself so efficiently looked at. Madam Mail has told me, and he doesn't like it, he privately reasoned. He had hoped Madam Mail would be there, but she was not in sight. Perhaps she was in one of the other rooms, or would come later. He had never especially delighted in Gilbert Osmond, having a fancy he gave himself airs. But Rosier was not quickly resentful, and where politeness was concerned, had ever a strong need of being quite in the right. He looked round him and smiled, all without help, and then, in a moment, I saw a jolly good piece of Capodimonte today, he said. Osmond answered nothing at first, but presently, while he warmed his boot sole, I don't care a fig for Capodimonte, he returned. I hope you're not losing your interest. In old pots and plates, yes, I'm losing my interest. Rosier, for an instant, forgot the delicacy of his position. You're not thinking of parting with a piece or two? No, I'm not thinking of parting with anything at all, Mr. Rosier. said Osmond, with his eyes still on the eyes of his visitor. I want to keep, but not to add, Rosier remarked brightly. Exactly, I've nothing I wish to match. Poor Rosier was aware he had blushed. He was distressed at his want of assurance. Oh, well, I have, was all he could murmur, and he knew his murmur was partly lost as he turned away. He took his course to the adjoining room, and met Mrs. Osmond coming out of the deep doorway. She was dressed in black velvet. She looked high and splendid, as he had said, and yet also radiantly gentle. We know what Mr. Rosier thought of her, and the terms in which, to Madam Mail, he had expressed his admiration. Like his appreciation of her dear little stepdaughter, it was based partly on his eye for decorative character, his instinct for authenticity, but also on a sense of uncatalogued values, for that secret of a luster, beyond any recorded losing or rediscovering, which his devotion to brittle wares had still not disqualified him to recognise. Mrs. Osmond at present might well have gratified such tastes. The years had touched her only to enrich her. The flower of her youth had not faded. It had only hung more quietly on its stem. She had lost something of that quick eagerness to which her husband had privately taken exception. She had more the air of being able to wait. Now, at all events, framed in the gilded doorway, she struck our young man as the picture of a gracious lady. You see, I am very regular, he said, but who should be, if I am not? Yes, I have known you longer than anyone here, but we must not indulge in tender reminiscences. I want to introduce you to a young lady. Ah, please, what young lady? Rosier was immensely obliging, but this was not what he had come for. She sits there by the fire in pink, and has no one to speak to. Rosier hesitated a moment. Can't Mr. Osmond speak to her? He's within six feet of her. Mrs. Osmond also hesitated. She's not very lively, and he doesn't like dull people. But she's good enough for me. Ah, now that's hard. I only mean that you've ideas for two, and then you're so obliging. So is your husband. No, he's not, to me. And Mrs. Osmond vaguely smiled. That's a sign he should be doubly so to other women. So I tell him, she said, still smiling. You see, I want some tea, Rosier went on, looking wistfully beyond. That's perfect. God give some to my young lady. Very good, but after that I'll abandon her to her fate. The simple truth is I'm dying to have a little talk with Miss Osmond. Ah, said Isabel, turning away. I can't help you there. Five minutes later, while he handed a teacup to the damsel in pink, whom he had conducted into the other room, he wondered whether, in making to Mrs. Osmond the profession I have just quoted, he had broken the spirit of his promise to Madame Mail. Such a question was capable of occupying this young man's mind for a considerable time. At last, however, he became, comparatively speaking, reckless. He cared little what promises he might break. The fate to which he had threatened to abandon the damsel in pink proved to be none so terrible for Pansy Osmond, who had given him the tea for his companion. Pansy was as fond as ever of making tea. Presently came and talked to her. Into this mild colloquy, Edward Rosier entered little. He sat by moodily, watching his small, sweet heart. If we look at her now through his eyes, we shall at first not see much to remind us of the obedient little girl, who, at Florence three years before, was sent to walk short distances in the caschine, while her father and Miss Archer talked together of matters sacred to elder people. But after a moment, we shall perceive that if, at nineteen, Pansy has become a young lady, she doesn't really fill out the part. That if she has grown very pretty, she lacks in a deplorable degree the quality known and esteemed in the appearance of females as style, and that if she is dressed with great freshness, she wears her smarter tire with an undisguised appearance of saving it, very much as if it were lent her for the occasion. Edward Rosier, it would seem, would have been just the man to note these defects, and in point of fact there was not a quality of this young lady of any sort that he had not noted. Only he called her qualities by names of his own, some of which indeed were happy enough. No, she's unique, she's absolutely unique, he used to say to himself, and you may be sure that not for an instant would he have admitted to you that she was wanting in style. Style? Why, she had the style of a little princess. If you couldn't see it, you had no eye. It was not modern, it was not conscious, it would produce no impression in broadway. The small, serious damsel in her stiff little dress only looked like an Infanta of Velazquez. This was enough for Edward Rosier, who thought her delightfully old-fashioned. Her anxious eyes, her charming lips, her slip of a figure, were as touching as a childish prayer. He had now an acute desire to know just to what point she liked him, a desire which made him fidget as he sat in his chair. It made him feel hot, so that he had to pat his forehead with his handkerchief. He had never been so uncomfortable. She was such a perfect journe-fis, and one couldn't make of a journe-fis the inquiry requisite for throwing light on such a point. A journe-fis was what Rosier had always dreamt of. A journe-fis who should yet not be French, for he had felt that this nationality would complicate the question. He was sure Pansy had never looked at a newspaper, and that in the way of novels, if she had read Sir Walter Scott, it was the very most. An American journe-fis, what could be better than that? She would be frank and gay, and yet would not have walked alone, nor have received letters from men, nor have been taken to the theatre to see the comedy of manners. Rosier could not deny that, as the matter stood. It would be a breach of hospitality to appeal directly to this unsophisticated creature, but he was now in imminent danger of asking himself if hospitality were the most sacred thing in the world. Was not the sentiment that he entertained for Miss Osmond of infinitely greater importance, of greater importance to him, yes, but not, probably, to the master of the house? There was one comfort. Even if this gentleman had been placed on his guard by Madam Mail, he would not have extended the warning to Pansy. It would not have been part of his policy to let her know that a prepossessing young man was in love with her. But he was in love with her, the prepossessing young man, and all these restrictions of circumstance had ended by irritating him. What had Gilbert Osmond meant by giving him two fingers of his left hand? If Osmond was rude, surely he himself might be bold. He felt extremely bold after the dull girl in so vain a disguise of rose colour had responded to the call of her mother, who came in to say, with a significant simper at Rosier, that she must carry her off to other triumphs. The mother and daughter departed together, and now it depended only upon him that he should be virtually alone with Pansy. He had never been alone with her before. He had never been alone with a germ fee. It was a great moment. Poor Rosier began to pat his forehead again. There was another room beyond the one in which they stood, a small room that had been thrown open and lighted, but that, the company not being numerous, had remained empty all the evening. It was empty yet. It was upholstered in pale yellow. There were several lamps. Through the open door it looked the very temple of authorised love. Rosier gazed a moment through this aperture. He was afraid that Pansy would run away, and felt almost capable of stretching out a hand to detain her. But she lingered where the other maiden had left them, making no motion to join a knot of visitors on the far side of the room. For a little it occurred to him that she was frightened, to frighten perhaps to move, but a second glance assured him she was not, and he then reflected that she was too innocent indeed for that. After a supreme hesitation he asked her if he might go and look at the yellow room, which seemed so attractive yet so virginal. He had been there already with Osmond to inspect the furniture, which was of the First French Empire, and especially to admire the clock, which he didn't really admire, an immense classic structure of that period. He therefore felt that he had now begun to manoeuvre. Certainly you may go, said Pansy, and if you like I'll show you, she was not in the least frightened. That's just what I hoped you'd say. You're so very kind, Rosier murmured. They went in together. Rosier really thought the room very ugly, and it seemed cold. The same idea appeared to have struck Pansy. It's not for winter evenings. It's more for summer, she said. It's Papa's taste. He has so much. He had a good deal, Rosier thought, but some of it was very bad. He looked about him. He hardly knew what to say in such a situation. Doesn't Mrs. Osmond care how her rooms are done? Has she no taste? he asked. Oh yes, a great deal. But it's more for literature, said Pansy, and for conversation. But Papa cares also for those things. I think he knows everything. Rosier was silent a little. There's one thing I'm sure he knows, he broke out presently. He knows that when I come here, it's with all respect to him, with all respect to Mrs. Osmond, who's so charming. It's really, said the young man, to see you. To see me. And Pansy raised her vaguely troubled eyes. To see you. That's what I come for, Rosier repeated, feeling the intoxication of a rupture with authority. Pansy stood looking at him, simply, intently, openly. A blush was not needed to make her face more modest. I thought it was for that. And it was not disagreeable to you? I couldn't tell. I didn't know. You never told me, said Pansy. I was afraid of offending you. You don't offend me, the young girl murmured, smiling as if an angel had kissed her. You like me then, Pansy, Rosier asked, very gently, feeling very happy. Yes, I like you. They had walked to the chimney-piece, where the big, cold empire-clock was perched. They were well within the room, and beyond observation from without. The tone in which she had said these four words seemed to him the very breath of nature, and his only answer could be to take her hand and hold it a moment. Then he raised it to his lips. She submitted, still with her pure, trusting smile, in which there was something ineffably passive. She liked him. She had liked him all the while. Now anything might happen. She was ready. She had been ready always, waiting for him to speak. If he had not spoken, she would have waited for ever. But when the word came, she dropped like the peach from the shaken tree. Rosier felt that if he should draw her towards him, and hold her to his heart, she would submit without a murmur, would rest there without a question. It was true that this would be a rash experiment in a Yellow Empire Salotino. She had known it was for her he came, and yet like what a perfect little lady she had carried it off. You're very dear to me. He murmured, trying to believe that there was, after all, such a thing as hospitality. She looked a moment at her hand, where he had kissed it. Did you say papa knows? You told me just now he knows everything. I think you must make sure, said Pansy. Ah, my dear, when once I'm sure of you, Rosier murmured in her ear, whereupon she turned back to the other rooms, with a little air of consistency, which seemed to imply that their appeal should be immediate. The other rooms, meanwhile, had become conscious of the arrival of Madame Mail, who, wherever she went, produced an impression when she entered. How she did it, the most attentive spectator could not have told you, for she neither spoke loud, nor laughed profusely, nor moved rapidly, nor dressed with splendor, nor appealed in any appreciable manner to the audience. Large, fair, smiling, serene, there was something in her very tranquility that diffused itself, and when people looked round it was because of a sudden quiet. On this occasion she had done the quietest things she could do. After embracing Mrs. Osmond, which was more striking, she had sat down on a small sofa to commune with the master of the house. There was a brief exchange of commonplaces between these two. They always paid, in public, a certain formal tribute to the commonplace. And then Madame Mail, whose eyes had been wondering, asked if little Mr. Rosier had come this evening. He came nearly an hour ago, but he has disappeared, Osmond said, and wears pansy. In the other room, there are several people there. He's probably among them, said Madame Mail. Do you wish to see him? Osmond asked in a provokingly pointless tone. Madame Mail looked at him a moment. She knew each of his tones to the eighth of a note. Yes, I should like to say to him that I've told you what he wants, and that it interests you but feebly. Don't tell him that. He'll try to interest me more, which is exactly what I don't want. Tell him I hate his proposal. But you don't hate it. It doesn't signify. I don't love it. I let him see that myself this evening. I was rude to him on purpose. That sort of thing's a great bore. There's no hurry. I'll tell him that you'll take time and think it over. No, don't do that. He'll hang on. If I discourage him, he'll do the same. Yes, but in the one case he'll try to talk and explain, which would be exceedingly tiresome. In the other, he'll probably hold his tongue and go in for some deeper game. That will leave me quiet. I hate talking with a donkey. Is that what you call, poor Mr. Rosier? Oh, he's a nuisance, with his eternal myeolica. Madame Mail dropped her eyes. She had a faint smile. He's a gentleman. He has a charming temper, and after all an income of forty thousand francs. It's misery. Gentile misery, Osmond broke in. It's not what I've dreamt of for Pansy. Very good, then. He has promised me not to speak to her. Do you believe him? Osmond asked absentmindedly. Perfectly. Pansy has thought a great deal about him, but I don't suppose you consider that that matters. I don't consider it matters at all, but neither do I believe she has thought of him. That opinion's more convenient, said Madame Mail quietly. Has she told you she's in love with him? For what do you take her? And for what do you take me, Madame Mail added in a moment. Osmond had raised his foot, and was resting his slim ankle on the other knee. He clasped his ankle in his hand, familiarly. His long, fine forefinger and thumb could make a ring for it, and gazed a while before him. This kind of thing doesn't find me unprepared. It's what I educated her for. It was all for this, that when such a case should come up, she should do what I prefer. I'm not afraid that she'll not do it. Well, then, where's the hitch? I don't see any, but all the same. I recommend you not to get rid of Mr. Rosier. Keep him on hand. He may be useful. I can't keep him. Keep him yourself. Very good. I'll put him into a corner and allow him so much a day. Madame Mail had, for the most part, while they talked, been glancing about her. It was her habit in this situation, just as it was her habit to interpose a good many blank-looking pauses. A long drop followed the last words I have quoted, and before it had ended, she saw Pansy come out of the adjoining room, followed by Edward Rosier. The girl advanced a few steps, and then stopped and stood looking at Madame Mail and at her father. He had spoken to her. Madame Mail went on to Osmond. Her companion never turned his head. So much for your belief in his promises. He ought to be horse-whipped. He intends to confess, poor little man. Osmond got up. He had now taken a sharp look at his daughter. It doesn't matter, he murmured, turning away. Pansy, after a moment, came up to Madame Mail with her little manner of unfamiliar politeness. This lady's reception of her was not more intimate. She simply, as she rose from the sofa, gave her a friendly smile. You're very late, the young creature gently said. My dear child, I'm never later than I intend to be. Madame Mail had not got up to be gracious to Pansy. She moved towards Edward Rosier. He came to meet her, and very quickly, as if to get it off his mind, I've spoken to her, he whispered. I know it, Mr. Rosier. Did she tell you? Yes, she told me. Behave properly for the rest of the evening, and come and see me to-morrow at a quarter-past-five. She was severe, and in the manner in which she turned her back to him, there was a degree of contempt which caused him to mutter a decent implication. He had no intention of speaking to Osmond. It was neither the time nor the place. But he instinctively wandered towards Isabelle, who sat talking with an old lady. He sat down on the other side of her. The old lady was Italian, and Rosier took for granted. She understood no English. You said just now you wouldn't help me. He began to miss his Osmond. Perhaps you'll feel differently when you know, when you know, Isabelle met his hesitation. When I know what? That she's all right. What do you mean by that? Well, that we've come to an understanding. She's all wrong, said Isabelle. It won't do. Paul Rosier gazed at her half-pleadingly, half-angryly. A sudden flush testified to his sense of injury. I've never been treated so, he said. What is there against me after all? That's not the way I'm usually considered. I could have married twenty times. It's a pity you didn't. I don't mean twenty times. But once, comfortably, Isabelle added, smiling kindly, you're not rich enough for pansy. She doesn't care a straw for one's money. No, but her father does. Ah, yes, he has proved that, cried the young man. Isabelle got up, turning away from him, leaving her old lady without ceremony, and he occupied himself for the next ten minutes in pretending to look at Gilbert Osmond's collection of miniatures, which were neatly arranged on a series of small velvet screens. But he looked without seeing. His cheek burnt. He was too full of his sense of injury. It was certain that he had never been treated that way before. He was not used to being thought not good enough. He knew how good he was, and if such a fallacy had not been so pernicious, he could have laughed at it. He searched again for pansy, but she had disappeared, and his main desire was now to get out of the house. Before doing so, he spoke once more to Isabelle. It was not agreeable to him to reflect that he had just said a rude thing to her, the only point that would now justify a low view of him. I referred to Mr. Osmond as I shouldn't have done a while ago, he began, but you must remember my situation. I don't remember what you said, she answered coldly. Ah, you're offended, and now you'll never help me. She was silent an instant, and then with a change of tone. It's not that I won't. I simply can't. Her manner was almost passionate. If you could, just a little, I'd never again speak of your husband, save as an angel. The inducement's great, said Isabelle gravely, inscrutably as he afterwards to himself called it, and she gave him, straight in the eyes, a look which was also inscrutable. It made him remember somehow that he had known her as a child, and yet it was keener than he liked, and he took himself off. End of Chapter 37 He went to see Madame Murley on the morrow, and to his surprise she let him off rather easily, but she made him promise that he would stop there till something should have been decided. Mr. Osmond had had higher expectations. It was very true that as he had no intention of giving his daughter a portion such expectations were open to criticism or even if one would to ridicule. But she would advise Mr. Rosier not to take that tone. If he would possess his soul in patience, he might arrive at his felicity. Mr. Osmond was not favourable to his suit, but it wouldn't be a miracle if he should gradually come round. Pantsy would never defy her father. He might depend on that, so nothing was to be gained by precipitation. Mr. Osmond needed to accustom his mind to an offer of a sort that he had not hitherto entertained, and this result must come of itself. It was useless to try to force it. Rosier remarked that his own situation would be in the meanwhile the most uncomfortable in the world, and Madame Murley assured him that she felt for him. But as she justly declared, one could not have everything one wanted. She had learnt that lesson for herself. There would be no use in his writing to Gilbert Osmond who had charged her to tell him as much. He wished the matter dropped for a few weeks and would himself write when he should have anything to communicate that it might please Mr. Rosier to hear. He doesn't like your having spoken to Pantsy. Ah, he doesn't like it at all, said Madame Murley. I am perfectly willing to give him a chance to tell me so. If you do that, he will tell you more than you care to hear. Go to the house for the next month as little as possible and leave the rest to me. As little as possible? Who is to measure the possibility? Let me measure it. Go on Thursday evenings with the rest of the world, but don't go at all at odd times, and don't fret about Pantsy. I will see that she understands everything. She has a calm little nature. She'll take it quietly. Edward Rosier fretted about Pantsy a good deal, but he did as he was advised, and waited another Thursday evening before returning to Palazzo Rocanera. There had been a party at dinner so that, though he went early, the company was already tolerably numerous. Osmond, as usual, was in the first room, near the fire, staring straight at the door, so that, not to be distinctly uncivil, Rosier had to go and speak to him. I'm glad that you can take a hint, Pantsy's father said, slightly closing his keen, conscious eyes. I take no hints, but I took a message as I supposed it to be. You took it? Where did you take it? It seemed to poor Rosier he was being insulted, and he waited a moment, asking himself how much a true lover ought to submit to. Madam Merly gave me, as I understood it, a message from you, to the effect that you declined to give me the opportunity I desire, the opportunity to explain my wishes to you, and he flattered himself, he spoke rather sternly. I don't see what Madam Merly has to do with it. Why did you apply to Madam Merly? I asked her for an opinion for nothing more. I did so, because she had seemed to me to know you very well. She doesn't know me so well as she thinks, said Osmond. I'm sorry for that, because she has given me some little ground for hope. Osmond stared in the fire a moment. I set a great price on my daughter. You can't set a higher one than I do. Don't I prove it by wishing to marry her? I wished to marry her very well. Osmond went on with the dry impertinence which in another mood poor Rosier would have admired. Of course, I pretend she would marry well in marrying me. She couldn't marry a man who loves her more or whom I'm a venture to add she loves more. I'm not bound to accept your theories as to whom my daughter loves, and Osmond looked up with a quick cold smile. I'm not theorizing your daughter has spoken. Not to me, Osmond continued, now bending forward a little and dropping his eyes to his boot-doze. I have her promise, sir, cried Rosier with the sharpness of exasperation. As their voices had been pitched very low before, such a note attracted some attention from the company. Osmond waited till this little movement had subsided, then he said, all undisturbed. I think she has no recollection of having given it. They had been standing with their faces to the fire, and after he had uttered these last words, the master of the house turned round again to the room. Before Rosier had time to reply, he perceived that a gentleman, a stranger, had just come in, unannounced, according to the Roman custom, and was about to present himself to his host. The latter smiled blandly, but somewhat blankly. The visitor had a handsome face and a large, fair beard, and was evidently an Englishman. You apparently don't recognize me, he said with a smile, that expressed more than Osmond's. Ah, yes, now I do. I expected so little to see you. Rosier departed and went in direct pursuit of Pansy. He sought her, as usual, in the neighboring room, but he again encountered Mrs. Osmond in his path. He gave his host a no greeting. He was too righteously indignant, but said to her crudely, your husband's awfully cold blooded. She gave the same mystical smile he had noticed before. You can't expect everyone to be as hot as yourself. I don't pretend to be cold, but I am cool. What has he been doing to his daughter? I have no idea. Don't you take any interest? Rosier demanded with his sense that she too was irritating. For a moment she answered nothing, then. No, she said abruptly, and with a quickened light in her eyes, which directly contradicted the word. Pardon me if I don't believe that. Where is Mrs. Osmond? In the corner, making tea, please leave her there. Rosier instantly discovered his friend, who had been hidden by intervening groups. He watched her, but her own attention was entirely given to her occupation. What on earth has he done to her? He asked again implodingly. He declares to me she has given me up. She has not given you up. Isabel said in a low tone, without looking at him. Ah, thank you for that. Now I'll leave her alone as long as you think proper. He had hardly spoken when he saw her change color, and became aware that Osmond was coming toward her accompanied by the gentleman who had just entered. He judged the latter in spite of the advantage of good looks and evident social experience a little embarrassed. Isabel said to her husband, I bring you an old friend. Mrs. Osmond's face, though it wore a smile, was like her old friend's, not perfectly confident. I am very happy to see Lord Warbutton, she said. Rosier turned away, and now that his talk with her had been interrupted, felt absorbed from the little pledge he had just taken. He had a quick impression that Mrs. Osmond wouldn't notice what he did. Isabel, in fact, to do him justice for some time quite ceased to observe him. She had been startled. She hardly knew if she felt a pleasure or a pain. Lord Warbutton, however, now that he was face to face with her, was plainly quite sure of his own sense of the matter. Though his grey eyes had still their fine original property of keeping recognition and attestation strictly sincere, he was heavier than of your and looked older. He stood there very solidly and sensibly. I suppose you didn't expect to see me, he said. I have but just arrived. Literally, I only got here this evening. You see, I have lost no time in coming to pay you my respects. I knew you were at home on Thursdays. You see, the fame of your Thursdays has spread to England, Osmond remarked to his wife. It's very kind of Lord Warbutton to come so soon. We are greatly flattered, Isabel said. Ah, well, it's better than stopping in one of those horrible inns, Osmond went on. The hotel seems very good. I think it's the same at which I saw you four years since. You know, it was here in Rome that we first met. It's a long time ago. Do you remember where I bid you goodbye? His lordship asked of his hostess. It was in the capital, in the first room. I remember that myself, said Osmond. I was there at the time. Yes, I remember you there. I was very sorry to leave Rome, so sorry that somehow or other it became almost a dismal memory, and I have never cared to come back till today. But I knew you were living here. Her old friend went on to Isabel. And I assured you I have often thought of you. It must be a charming place to live in. He added with a look round him at her established home, in which she might have caught the dim ghost of his old ruefulness. We should have been glad to see you at any time, Osmond observed with propriety. Thank you very much. I haven't been out of England since then. Till a month ago I really supposed my travels over. I have heard a few from time to time, said Isabel, who had already with her rare capacity for such inward feats taken the measure of what meeting him again meant for her. I hope you have heard no harm. My life has been remarkably complete blank. Like the good dreams in history, Osmond suggested. He appeared to think his duties as a host now terminated. He had performed them so conscientiously. Nothing could have been more adequate, more nicely measured, than his courtesy to his wife's old friend. It was punctilious. It was explicit. It was everything but natural. A deficiency which Lord Warburton, who himself had on the whole a good deal of nature, may be supposed to have perceived. I will leave you and Mrs. Osmond together, he added. You have reminiscences into which I don't enter. I'm afraid you lose a good deal. Lord Warburton called after him as he moved away in a tone which perhaps betrayed over much an appreciation of his generosity. Then the visitor turned on Isabel, the deeper, the deepest, consciousness of his look which gradually became more serious. I'm really very glad to see you. It's very pleasant. You're very kind. Do you know that you have changed a little? She just hesitated. Yes, a good deal. I don't mean for the worse, of course. And yet, how can I save for the better? I think I shall have no scruple in saying that to you. She bravely returned. Ah, well, for me, it's a long time. It would be a pity there shouldn't be something to show for it. They sat down and she asked him about his sisters. With other inquiries of a somewhat pre-functory kind. He answered her questions as if they interested him, and in a few moments she saw or believed she saw that he would press with less of his whole weight than of your. Time had breathed upon his heart, and without chilling it, given it a relieved sense of having taken the air. Isabel felt her usual esteem for time rise at a bound. Her friend's manner was certainly that of a contented man, one who would rather like people or like her at least to know him for such. There's something I must tell you without more delay, he resumed. I have brought Ralph touch it with me. Brought him with you? Isabel's surprise was great. He's at the hotel. He was too tired to come out and has gone to bed. I'll go to see him, she immediately said. That's exactly what I hoped you'd do. I had an idea. You hadn't seen much of him since your marriage, that in fact your relations were a little more formal. That's why I hesitated like an awkward Britain. I'm as fond of Ralph as ever, Isabel answered, but why has he come to Rome? The declaration was very gentle, the question a little sharp. Because he is very far gone, Mrs. Osman. Rome then is no place for him. I heard from him that he had determined to give up his custom of wintering abroad and to remain in England indoors in what he called an artificial climate. Poor fellow, he doesn't succeed with the artificial. I went to see him three weeks ago at Garden Court and found him thoroughly ill. He has been getting worse every year and now he has no strength left. He smokes no more cigarettes. He had got up an artificial climate indeed. The house was as hot as Calcutta. Nevertheless, he had suddenly taken it into his head to start for Sicily. I didn't believe in it. Neither did the doctors nor any of his friends. His mother, as I suppose you know, is in America, so there was no one to prevent him. He stuck to his idea that it would be saving of him to spend the winter at Catania. He said he could take servants and furniture, could make himself comfortable. But in point of fact, he hasn't brought anything. I wanted him at least to go by sea to save Fatigue. But he said he hated the sea and wished to stop at Rome. After that, though I thought it all rubbish, I made up my mind to come with him. I am acting as, what do you call it in America? As a kind of moderator. Poor Ralph's very moderate now. We left England a fortnight ago and he has been very bad on the way. He can't keep warm and the further south we come, the more he feels the cold. He has got rather a good man, but I am afraid he is beyond human help. I wanted him to take with him some clever fellow. I mean some sharp young doctor. But he wouldn't hear of it. If you don't mind my saying so, I think it was a most extraordinary time for Mrs. Touchett to decide on going to America. Isabel had listened eagerly. Her face was full of pain and wonder. My aunt does that at fixed periods and lets nothing turn her aside. When the date comes round, she starts. I think she would have started if Ralph had been dying. I sometimes think he is dying, Lord Ward Burton said. Isabel sprang up. I'll go to him then now. He checked her. He was a little disconcerted at the quick effect of his words. I don't mean I thought so tonight. On the contrary, today, in the train, he seemed particularly well. The idea of our reaching Rome, he is very fond of Rome, you know, gave him strength. An hour ago, when I bathed him good night, he told me he was very tired, but very happy. Go to him in the morning. That's all I mean. I didn't tell him I was coming here. I didn't decide to till after we had separated. Then I remembered he had told me you had an evening and that it was this very Thursday. It occurred to me to come in and tell you he is here and let you know you had perhaps better not wait for him to call. I think he said he hadn't written to you. There was no need of Isabel's declaring that she would act upon Lord Ward Burton's information. She looked as she sat there like a winged creature held back. Let alone that I wanted to see you for myself, her visitor gallantly added. I don't understand Ralf's plan. It seems to me very wild, she said. I was glad to think of him between those thick walls at Garden Court. He was completely alone there. The thick walls were his only company. You went to see him. You have been extremely kind. Oh, dear, I had nothing to do, said Lord Ward Burton. We hear on the contrary that you are doing great things. Everyone speaks of you as a great statesman and I am perpetually seeing your name in the times, which, by the way, doesn't appear to hold it in reverence. You are apparently as wild a radical as ever. I don't feel nearly so wild. You know the world has come round to me. Tauchat and I have kept up a sort of parliamentary debate all the way from London. I tell him he is the last of the Tories, and he calls me the King of the Gods. Says I have, down to the details of my personal appearance, every sign of the brute. So you see, there is life in him yet. Isabel had many questions to ask about Ralf, but she abstained from asking them all. She would see for herself on the morrow. She perceived that after a little Lord Ward Burton would tire of that subject. He had a conception of other possible topics. She was more and more able to say to herself that he had recovered, and what is more to the point she was able to say it without bitterness. He had been, for her of old, such an image of urgency, of insistence, of something to be resisted and reasoned with, that his appearance at first menaced her with a new trouble. But she was now reassured. She could see he only wished to live with her on good terms. That she was to understand he had forgiven her, and was incapable of the bad taste of making pointed allusions. This was not a form of revenge. Of course, she had no suspicion of his wishing to punish her by an exhibition of disillusionment. She did him the justice to believe it had simply occurred to him that she would now take a good-natured interest in knowing he was resigned. It was the resignation of a healthy manly nature in which sentimental wounds could never fester. British politics had cured him. She had known they would. She gave an envious thought to the happier lot of men, who were always free to plunge into the healing waters of action. Lord Warburton, of course, spoke of the past, but he spoke of it without implications. He even went so far as to allude to their former meeting in Rome as a very jolly time. And he told her he had been immensely interested in hearing of her marriage and that it was a great pleasure for him to make Mr. Osman's acquaintance, since he could hardly be said to have made it on the other occasion. He had not written to her at the time of that passage in her history, but he didn't apologize to her for this. The only thing he implied was that they were old friends, intimate friends. It was very much as an intimate friend that he said to her suddenly after a short pause which he had occupied in smiling as he looked about him like a person amused at a provincial entertainment by some innocent game of guesses. Well, now, I suppose you're very happy and all that sort of thing. Isabel answered with a quick laugh, the tone of his remarks struck her almost as the accent of comedy. Do you suppose if I were not, I would tell you? Well, I don't know. I don't see why not. I do then. Fortunately, however, I am very happy. You have got an awfully good house. Yes, it's very pleasant. But that's not my merit. It's my husband's. You mean he has arranged it? Yes, it was nothing when we came. He must be very clever. He has a genius for upholstery, said Isabel. There's a great rage for that sort of thing now, but you must have a taste of your own. I enjoy things when they are done, but I have no ideas. I can never propose anything. Do you mean you accept what others propose? Very willingly, for the most part. That's a good thing to know. I shall propose to you something. It will be very kind. I must say, however, that I have, in a few small ways, a certain initiative. I should like, for instance, to introduce you to some of these people. Oh, please don't. I prefer sitting here, unless it be to that young lady in the blue dress. She has a charming face. The one talking to the rosy young man. That's my husband's daughter. Lucky man, your husband. What a dear little maid. You must make her a quintance. In a moment, with pleasure. I like looking at her from here. He ceased to look at her, however, very soon. His eyes constantly reverted to Mrs. Osmond. Do you know I was wrong just now in saying you had changed? He presently went on. You seem to me, after all, very much the same. And yet I find it a great change to be married, said Isabel, with mild gait. It affects most people more than it has affected you. You see, I haven't gone in for that. It rather surprised me. You ought to understand it, Mrs. Osmond. But I don't want to marry. He added more simply. It ought to be very easy, Isabel said, rising, after which she reflected with a pang perhaps too visible, that she was hardly the person to say this. It was perhaps because Lord Warburton devined the pang that he generously forebored to call her attention to her not having contributed then to the facility. Edward Rosier had meanwhile seated himself on an auto-man beside Pansy's tea-table. He pretended at first to talk to her about trifles, and she asked him who was a new gentleman conversing with her stepmother. He's an English lord, said Rosier. I don't know more. I wonder if he'll have some tea. The English are so fond of tea. Never mind that. I have something particular to say to you. Don't speak so loud. Everyone will hear, said Pansy. They won't hear if you continue to look that way, as if your only thought in life was the wish the kettle would boil. It has just been filled. The servants never know. And she sighed with the weight of her responsibility. Do you know what your father said to me just now? That you didn't mean what you said a week ago. I don't mean everything I say. How can a young girl do that? But I mean what I say to you. He told me you had forgotten me. Ah, no. I don't forget, said Pansy, showing her pretty teeth in a fixed smile. Then everything's just the very same. Ah, no. Not the very same. Papa has been terribly severe. What has he done to you? He asked me what you had done to me, and I told him everything. Then he forbade me to marry you. You need not mind that. Oh, yes, I must indeed. I can't disobey Papa. Not for one who loves you as I do, and whom you pretend to love? She raised the lid of the teapot, gazing into this vessel for a moment. Then she dropped six words into its aromatic depths. I love you just as much. What good will that do me? Ah, said Pansy, raising her sweet, vague eyes. I don't know that. You disappoint me, groaned poor Rosier. She was silent a little. She handed a teacup to a servant. Please don't talk any more. Is this to be all my satisfaction? Papa said I was not to talk with you. Do you sacrifice me like that? Ah, it's too much. I wish you would wait a little, said the girl in a voice, just distinct enough to betray a quaver. Of course I'll wait if you will give me hope. But you take my life away. I'll not give you up. Oh no, Pansy went on. He will try and make you marry someone else. I'll never do that. What then are we to wait for? She hesitated again. I'll speak to Mrs. Osman and she'll help us. It was in this manner that she, for the most part, designated her stepmother. She won't help us much. She's afraid. Afraid of what? Of your father, I suppose. Pansy shook her little head. She's not afraid of anyone. We must have patience. Ah, that's an awful word. Rosia groaned. He was deeply disconcerted. Oblivious of the customs of good society, he dropped his head into his hands and supporting it with a melancholy grace, sad staring at the carpet. Presently he became aware of a good deal of movement about him, and as he looked up, saw Pansy making a curtsy. It was still her little curtsy of the convent, to the English lord whom Mrs. Osman had introduced.