 Chapter 39 of the Portrait of a Lady Volume 2 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, recording by Red Abras. The Portrait of a Lady Volume 2 by Henry James Chapter 39 It will probably not surprise the reflective reader that Ralph Tauchet should have been seen less of his cousin since her marriage than he had done before that event, an event of which he took such a view as could hardly prove a confirmation of intimacy. He had uttered his thought, as we know, and after this had held his peace, Isabel not having invited him to resume a discussion which marked an era in their relations. That discussion had made a difference, the difference he feared rather than the one he hoped. It had not chilled the girl's zeal in carrying out her engagement, but it had come dangerously near to spoiling a friendship. No reference was ever again made between them to Ralph's opinion of Gilbert Osmond, and by surrounding this topic with his sacred silence they managed to preserve a semblance of reciprocal frankness. But there was a difference, as Ralph often said to himself, there was a difference. She had not forgiven him. She never would forgive him. That was all he had gained. She thought she had forgiven him. She believed she didn't care. And as she was both very generous and very proud, these convictions represented a certain reality. But whether or no the event could justify him, he would virtually have done her a wrong. And the wrong was of the sort that women remember best. As Osmond's wife, she could never again be his friend. If in this character she should enjoy the felicity she expected, she would have nothing but contempt for the man who had attempted in advance to undermine a blessing so dear. And if, on the other hand, his warning should be justified, the vow she had taken that he should never know it would lay upon her spirit such a burden as to make her hate him. So Dismal had been during the year that followed his cousin's marriage, Ralph's pre-vision of the future. And if his meditations appear morbid, we must remember he was not in the bloom of health. He consoled himself as he might by behaving as he deemed, beautifully, and was present at the ceremony by which Isabel was united to Mr. Osmond, and which was performed in Florence in the month of June. He learned from his mother that Isabel at first had thought of celebrating her nuptials in her native land. But that, as simplicity was, what she chiefly desired to secure she had finally decided, in spite of Osmond's professed willingness to make a journey of any length, that this characteristic would be best embodied in their being married by the nearest clergyman in the shortest time. The thing was done, therefore, at the little American chapel on a very hot day, in the presence only of Mrs. Tauchet and her son, of Pansy Osmond and the Countess Gemini. That severity, in the proceedings of which I just spoke, was in part the result of the absence of two persons who might have been looked for on the occasion and who would have lent it a certain richness. Madame Murley had been invited, but Madame Murley, who was unable to leave Rome, had written a gracious letter of excuses. Henrietta Stackpole had not been invited. As her departure from America announced to Isabel by Mr. Goodwood was in fact frustrated by the duties of her profession, but she had sent a letter less gracious than Madame Murley's. Intimating that, had she been able to cross the Atlantic, she would have been present not only as a witness, but as a critic. Her return to Europe had taken place somewhat later, and she had effected a meeting with Isabel in the autumn in Paris, when she had indulged, perhaps a trifle too freely, her critical genius. Barbara Ostman, who was chiefly the subject of it, had protested so sharply that Henrietta was obliged to declare to Isabel that she had taken a step which put a barrier between them. It isn't in the least that you have married, it is that you have married him. She had deemed it her duty to remark, agreeing it will be seen much more with Ralph Touch it than she suspected, though she had few of his hesitations and compunctions. Henrietta's second visit to Europe, however, was not apparently to have been made in vain, for just at the moment when Ostman had declared to Isabel that he really must object to that newspaper woman, and Isabel had answered that it seemed to her he took Henrietta too hard, the good Mr. Bantling had appeared upon the scene and proposed that they should take a run down to Spain. Henrietta's letters from Spain had proved the most acceptable she had yet published, and there had been one in a special dated from the Alhambra and entitled Moors and Moonlight, which generally passed for her masterpiece. Isabel had been secretly disappointed at her husband's not seeing his way simply to take the poor girl for funny. She even wondered if his sense of fun or of the funny which would be his sense of humor, wouldn't it, where by chance defective. Of course, she herself looked at the matter as a person whose present happiness had nothing to grudge to Henrietta's violated conscience. Ostman had thought their alliance a kind of monstrosity. He couldn't imagine what they had in common. For him Mr. Bantling's fellow tourist was simply the most vulgar of women, and he had also pronounced her the most abandoned. Since this latter clause of the verdict, Isabel had appealed with an ardour that had made him wander afresh at the oddity of some of his wife's tastes. Isabel could explain it only by saying that she liked to know people who were as different as possible from herself. Why then don't you make the acquaintance of your washerwoman? Ostman had inquired to which Isabel had answered that she was afraid her washerwoman wouldn't care for her. Now Henrietta cared so much. Ralph had seen nothing of her for the greater part of the two years that had followed her marriage. The winter that formed the beginning of her residence in Rome, he had spent again at San Remo, where he had been joined in the spring by his mother, who afterwards had gone with him to England. To see what they were doing at the bank, an operation she could not induce him to perform. Ralph had taken a lease of his house at San Remo, a small villa which he had occupied still another winter, but late in the month of April of this second year he had come down to Rome. It was the first time since her marriage that he had stood face to face with Isabel. His desire to see her again was then of the keenest. She had written to him from time to time, but her letters told him nothing he wanted to know. He had asked his mother what she was making of her life, and his mother had simply answered that she supposed she was making the best of it. Mrs. Tautget had not the imagination that communes with the unseen, and she now pretended to know intimacy with her niece whom she rarely encountered. This young woman appeared to be living in a sufficiently honorable way, but Mrs. Tautget still remained of the opinion that her marriage had been a shabby affair. It had given her no pleasure to think of Isabel's establishment, which she was sure was a very lame business. From time to time in Florence she rubbed against the Countess Chemini, doing her best always to minimize the contact, and the Countess reminded her of Osmond, who made her think of Isabel. The Countess was less talked of in these days, but Mrs. Tautget augured no good of that. It only proved how she had been talked of before. There was a more direct suggestion of Isabel in the person of Madame Merle, but Madame Merle's relations with Mrs. Tautget had undergone a perceptible change. Isabel's aunt had told her, without circumlocution, that she had played two ingenious apart, and Madame Merle, who never quarreled with anyone, who appeared to think no one worth it, and who had performed the miracle of living more or less for several years with Mrs. Tautget and showing no symptom of irritation, Madame Merle now took a very high tone and declared that this was an acquisition from which she could not stoop to defend herself. She added, however, without stooping, that her behavior had been only too simple, that she had believed only what she saw, that she saw Isabel was not eager to marry an osmond not eager to please. His repeated visits had been nothing. He was boring himself to death on his hilltop, and he came merely for amusement. Isabel had kept her sentiments to herself, and her journey to Greece and Egypt had effectually thrown dust in her companion's eyes. Madame Merle accepted the event. She was unprepared to think of it as a scandal, but that she had not played any part in it. Doubler single was an imputation against which she proudly protested. It was doubtless in consequence of Mrs. Tautget's attitude, and of the injury it offered to habits consecrated by many charming seasons that Madame Merle had, after this, chosen to pass many months in England where her credit was quite unimpaired. Mrs. Tautget had done her a wrong. There are some things that can't be forgiven. But Madame Merle suffered insidence. There was always something exquisite in her dignity. Ralph, as I say, had wished to see for himself, but while engaged in this pursuit, he had yet felt afresh what a fool he had been to put the girl on her guard. He had played the wrong card, and now he had lost the game. He should see nothing. He should learn nothing. After him, she would always wear a mask. His true line would have been to profess delight in her union, so that later, when, as Ralph phrased it, the bottom should fall out of it, she might have the pleasure of saying to him that he had been a goose. He would gladly have consented to pass for a goose in order to know Isabel's real situation. At present, however, she neither taunted him with his fallacies, nor pretended that her own confidence was justified. If she wore a mask, it completely covered her face. There was something fixed and mechanical in the serenity painted on it. This was not an expression, Ralph said. It was a representation. It was even an advertisement. She had lost her child. That was a sorrow. But it was a sorrow she scarcely spoke of. There was more to say about it than she could say to Ralph. It belonged to the past. Moreover, it had occurred six months before, and she had already laid aside the tokens of mourning. She appeared to be leading the life of the world. Ralph heard her spoken of as having a charming position. He observed that she produced the impression of being peculiarly enviable, that it was supposed, among many people, to be a privilege even to know her. Her house was not open to everyone, and she had an evening in the week to which people were not invited as a matter of course. She lived with a sudden magnificence, but you needed to be a member of her circle to perceive it, for there was nothing to gap at, nothing to criticize, nothing even to admire in the daily proceedings of Mr. and Mrs. Asmond. Ralph, in all this, recognized the hand of the master, for he knew that Isabel had no faculty for producing studied impressions. She struck him as having a great love of movement, of gaity, of late hours, of long rides, of fatigue, and eagerness to be entertained, to be interested, even to be bored, to make acquaintances, to see people who were talked about, to explore the neighborhood of Rome, to enter into relation with certain of the mustiest relics of its old society. In all this, there was much less discrimination than in that desire for comprehensiveness of development on which he had been used to exercise his bit. There was a kind of violence in some of her impulses, of crudity in some of her experiments, which took him by surprise. It seemed to him that she even spoke faster, moved faster, breathed faster than before her marriage. Certainly she had fallen into exaggerations. She who used to care so much for the pure truth, and whereas of old, she had a great delight in good human argument, in intellectual play. She never looked so charming as when, in the genuine heat of discussion, she received a crashing blow full in the face and brushed it away as a feather. She appeared now to think there was nothing worth people's either differing about or agreeing upon. Of all she had been curious, and now she was indifferent, and yet in spite of her indifference, her activity was greater than ever. Slender still, but lovelier than before, she had gained no great maturity of aspect. Yet there was an amplitude and a brilliance in her personal arrangements that gave a touch of insolence to her beauty. Poor human hearted Isabel. What perversity had bitten her? Her light step drew a mass of rapery behind it. Her intelligent head sustained a majesty of ornament. The free, keen girl had become quite another person. What he saw was the fine lady who was supposed to represent something. What did Isabel represent? Ralph asked himself, and he could only answer by saying that she represented Gilbert Osmond. Good heavens, what a function! He then woefully exclaimed. He was lost in wonder at the mystery of things. He recognized Osmond. As I say, he recognized him at every turn. He saw how he kept all things within limits, how he adjusted, regulated, animated their manner of life. Osmond was in his element. At last he had material to work with. He always had an eye to effect, and his effects were deeply calculated. They were produced by no vulgar means, but the motive was as vulgar as the art was great. To surround his interior with a sort of invidious sanctity to tantalize society with a sense of exclusion, to make people believe his house was different from every other, to impart to the face that he presented to the world a cold originality. This was the ingenious effort of the personage to whom Isabel had attributed a superior morality. He works with superior material, Ralph said to himself. It's rich abundance compared with his former resources. Ralph was a clever man, but Ralph had never, to his own sense, been so clever as when he observed in petto that under the guise of caring only for intrinsic values, Osmond lived exclusively for the world. Far from being its master, as he pretended to be, he was its very humble servant. And the degree of its attention was his only measure of success. He lived with his eye on it from morning to night. And the world was so stupid it never suspected the trick. Everything he did was pose. Pose so subtly considered that if one were not on the lookout, one mistook it for impulse. Ralph had never met a man who lived so much in the land of consideration. His tastes, his studies, his accomplishments, his collections were all for a purpose. His life on his hilltop at Florence had been the conscious attitude of yours. His solitude, his ennui, his love for his daughter, his good manners, his bad manners were so many features of a mental image constantly present to him as a model of impertinence and mystification. His ambition was not to please the world, but to please himself by exciting the world's curiosity and then declining to satisfy it. It had made him feel great ever, to play the world a trick. The thing he had done in his life most directly to please himself was his marrying Miss Archer, though in this case indeed the gullible world was in a manner embodied in poor Isabel, who had been mystified to the top of her bent. Ralph, of course, found a fitness in being consistent. He had embraced a creed and as he had suffered for it, he could not in honor forsake it. I give this little sketch of its articles for what they may at the time have been worth. It was certain that he was very skillful in fitting the facts to his theory. Even the fact that during the month he spent in Rome at this period the husband of the woman he loved appeared to regard him not in the least as an enemy. For Gilbert Osmond, Ralph had not now that importance. It was not that he had the importance of a friend. It was rather that he had none at all. He was Isabel's cousin and he was rather unpleasantly ill. It was on this basis that Osmond treated with him. He made the proper inquiries, asked about his health, about Mrs. Tauchet, about his opinion of winter climates, whether he were comfortable at his hotel. He addressed him on the few occasions of their meeting, not a word that was not necessary. But his manner had always the urbanity proper to conscious success in the presence of conscious failure. For all this Ralph had had toward the end a sharp inward vision of Osmond's making it of small ease to his wife that she should continue to receive Mr. Tauchet. He was not jealous. He had not that excuse. No one could be jealous of Ralph, but he made Isabel pay for her old time kindness, of which so much was still left. And as Ralph had no idea of her paying too much, so when his suspicion had become sharp, he had taken himself off. In doing so, he had deprived Isabel of a very interesting occupation. She had been constantly wondering what fine principle was keeping him alive. She had decided that it was his love of conversation. His conversation had been better than ever. He had given up walking. He was no longer a humorous stroller. He sat all day in a chair, almost any chair would serve and was so dependent on what you would do for him that had not his talk been highly contemplative, you might have thought he was blind. The reader already knows more about him than Isabel was ever to know, and the reader may therefore be given the key to the mystery. What kept Ralph alive was simply the fact that he had not yet seen enough of the person in the world in whom he was most interested. He was not yet satisfied. There was more to come. He couldn't make up his mind to lose that. He wanted to see what she would make of her husband or what her husband would make of her. This was only the first act of the drama, and he was determined to sit out the performance. His determination had held good. It had kept him going some 18 months more till the time of his return to Rome with Lord Warburton. It had given him indeed such an air of intending to live indefinitely that Mrs. Touchett, though more accessible to confusions of thought in the matter of the strange, unremunerative and unremunerated son of hers, then she had ever been before had, as we have learned, not scrupled to embark for a distant land. If Ralph had been kept alive by suspense, it was with a good deal of the same emotion. The excitement of wondering in what state she should find him that Isabel mounted to his apartment the day after Lord Warburton had notified her of his arrival in Rome. She spent an hour with him. It was the first of several visits. Gilbert Osmond called on him punctually and on their sending their carriage for him, Ralph came more than once to Palazzo Rocanera. A fortnight elapsed at the end of which Ralph announced to Lord Warburton that he thought after all he wouldn't go to Sicily. The two men had been dining together after a day spent by the latter in the ranging about the Campana. They had left the table and Warburton before the chimney was lighting a cigar which he instantly removed from his lips. Won't go to Sicily? Where then will you go? Well, I guess I won't go anywhere, said Ralph from the sofa, all shamelessly. Do you mean you will return to England? Oh dear no, I'll stay in Rome. Rome won't do for you. Rome's not warm enough. It will have to do. I will make it do. See how well I have been. Lord Warburton looked at him a while, puffing a cigar and as if trying to see it. You have been better than you were on the journey certainly. I wonder how you lived through that, but I don't understand your condition. I recommend you to try Sicily. I can't try, said poor Ralph. I have done trying. I can't move further. I can't face that journey. Fancy me between Skyla and Caribdis. I don't want to die on the Sicilian plains to be snatched away like prosopin in the same locality to the plutonian shades. What the deuce then did you come for? His lordship inquired. Because the idea took me. I see it won't do. It really doesn't matter where I am now. I have exhausted all remedies. I have swallowed all climates as I'm here. I'll stay. I haven't a single cousin in Sicily, much less a married one. Your cousins certainly an inducement. But what does the doctor say? I haven't asked him and I don't care a fig. If I die here, Mrs. Ostman will body me. But I shall not die here. I hope not. Lord Warburton continued to smoke reflectively. Well, I must say, he resumed, for myself I'm very glad you don't insist on Sicily. I had a horror of that journey. Ah, but for you it need not have mattered. I had no idea of dragging you in my train. I certainly didn't mean to let you go alone. My dear Warburton, I have never expected you to come further than this. Ralph cried. I should have gone with you and seen you settled, said Lord Warburton. You are a very good Christian. You're a very kind man. Then I should have come back here. And then you'd have gone to England. No, no, no, I should have stayed. Well, said Ralph, if that's what we are both up to, I don't see where Sicily comes in. His companion was silent. He sat staring at the fire. At last, looking up. I say, tell me this, he broke out. Did you really mean to go to Sicily when we started? Ah, was, man, the man is rough. Let me put a question first. Did you come with me quite platonically? I don't know what you mean by that. I wanted to come abroad. I suspect we have each been playing a little game. Speak for yourself. I made no secret whatever of my desiring to be here for a while. Yes, I remember. You said you wished to see the minister of foreign affairs. I have seen him three times. He's very amusing. I think you have forgotten what you came for, said Ralph. Perhaps I have. His companion answered rather gravely. These two were gentlemen of a race which is not distinguished by the absence of reserve. And they had traveled together from London to Rome without an allusion to matters that were uppermost in the mind of each. There was an old subject they had once discussed, but it had lost its recognized place in their tension. And even after their arrival in Rome, where many things led back to it, they had kept the same half. Diffident, half-confident silence. I recommend you to get the doctor's consent all the same. Lord Wardburton went on abruptly after an interval. The doctor's consent will spoil it. I never have it when I can help it. What then does Mrs. Osmond think? Ralph's friend demanded. I have not told her. She'll probably say that Rome's too cold and even offered to go with me to Catania. She's capable of that. In your place, I should like it. Her husband don't like it. Ah, well, I can fancy that. Though it seems to me, you are not bound to mind his likings. They are his affair. I don't want to make any more trouble between them, said Ralph. Is there so much already? There's complete preparation for it. Her going off with me would make the explosion. Osmond isn't fond of his wife's cousin. Then, of course, he would make a row. But won't he make a row if you stop here? That's what I want to see. He made one the last time I was in Rome and then I thought it my duty to disappear. Now I think it's my duty to stop and defend her. My dear Tautget, your defensive powers. Lord Wardburton began with a smile. But he saw something in his companion's face that checked him. Your duty in these premises seems to me rather a nice question. He observed instead. Ralph, for a short time, answered nothing. It's true that my defensive powers are small. He turned at last. But as my aggressive ones are still smaller, Osmond may after all not think me worth his gunpowder. At any rate, he added, there are things I'm curious to see. You're sacrificing your health to your curiosity, then. I'm not much interested in my health and I'm deeply interested in Mrs. Osmond. So am I. But not as I once was, Lord Wardburton added quickly. This was one of the allusions he had not hitherto found occasion to make. Does she strike you as very happy? Ralph inquired, emboldened by this confidence. Well, I don't know. I've hardly thought. She told me the other night she was happy. Ah, she told you, of course, Ralph exclaimed, smiling. I don't know that. It seems to me I was rather the sort of person she might have complained to. Complained? She will never complain. She has done it. What she has done and she knows it. She will complain to you least of all. She is very careful. She need not be. I don't mean to make love to her again. I'm delighted to hear it. There can be no doubt at least of your duty. Ah, no, said Lord Wardburton gravely. None. Permit me to ask, Ralph went on, whether it's to bring out the fact that you don't mean to make love to her that you are so very civil to the little girl? Lord Wardburton gave a slight start. He got up and stood before the fire, looking at it hard. Does that strike you as very ridiculous? Ridiculous? Not on the least, if you really like her. I think her a delightful little person. I don't know when a girl of that age has pleased me more. She's a charming creature. Ah, she at least is genuine. Of course, there's a difference in our ages, more than 20 years. My dear Wardburton said, Ralph, are you serious? Perfectly serious. As far as I have got, I'm very glad and heaven help us, cried Ralph. How cheered up old Osman will be. His companion frowned. I say, don't spoil it. I shouldn't propose for his daughter to please him. He will have the perversity to be pleased all the same. He's not so fond of me as that, said his lordship. As that, my dear Wardburton, the drawback of your position is that people need not be fond of you at all to wish to be connected with you. Now, with me in such a case, I should have the happy confidence that they loved me. Lord Wardburton seemed scarcely in the mood for doing justice to general axioms. He was thinking of a special case. Do you judge she will be pleased? The girl herself, delighted, surely. No, no, I mean Mrs. Osman. Ralph looked at him a moment. My dear fellow, what has she to do with it? Whatever she chooses, she's very fond of Pansy. Very true, very true. And Ralph slowly got up. It is an interesting question. How far her fondness for Pansy will carry her? He stood there a moment with his hands in his pockets and rather a clouded brow. I hope you know that you are very, very sure. The deuce he broke off. I don't know how to say it. Yes, you do. You know how to say everything. Well, it's awkward. I hope you're sure that among Mrs. Osman's medits, her being so near her stepmother isn't a leading one. Good heavens touch it, cried Lord Wardburton angrily. For what do you take me? End of Chapter 39, Recording by Red Abrass. Chapter 40 of The Portrait of a Lady, Volume 2. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Red Abrass. The Portrait of a Lady, Volume 2. By Henry James, Chapter 40. Isabel had not seen much of Madame Murley since her marriage. This lady having indulged in frequent absences from Rome. At one time, she had spent six months in England. At another, she had passed a portion of a winter in Paris. She had made numerous visits to distant friends and gave countenance to the idea that for the future, she should be a less invertebrate Roman than in the past. As she had been invertebrate in the past only in the sense of constantly having an apartment in one of the sunniest niches of the Pincean, an apartment which often stood empty. This suggested a prospect of almost constant absence. A danger which Isabel at one period had been much inclined to deplore. Familiarity had modified in some degree her first impression of Madame Murley. But it had not essentially altered it. There was still much wonder of admiration in it. That personage was armed at all points. It was a pleasure to see a character so completely equipped for the social battle. She carried her flag discreetly, but her weapons were polished steel. And she used them with a skill which struck Isabel as more and more that of a veteran. She was never weary, never overcome with disgust. She never appeared to need rest or consolation. She had her own ideas. She had of old exposed a great many of them to Isabel. Who knew also that under an appearance of extreme self-control, her highly cultivated friend concealed a rich sensibility. But her will was mistress of her life. There was something gallant in the way she kept going. It was as if she had learned the secret of it. As if the art of life were some clever trick she had guessed. Isabel, as she herself grew older, became acquainted with revolutions, with disgusts. There were days when the world looked black and she asked herself with some sharpness what it was that she was pretending to live for. Her old habit had been to live by enthusiasm. To fall in love with suddenly perceived possibilities. With the idea of some new adventure. As a younger person, she had been used to proceed from one little exaltation to the other. There were scarcely any dull places between. But Madame Murley had suppressed enthusiasm. She fell in love nowadays with nothing. She lived entirely by reason and by wisdom. There were hours when Isabel would have given anything for lessons in this art. If her brilliant friend had been near, she would have made an appeal to her. She had become aware more than before of the advantage of being like that. Of having made one's self a firm surface. A sort of curslet of silver. But as I say, it was not till the winter during which we lately renewed acquaintance with our heroine. That the personage in question made again a continuous stay in Rome. Isabel now saw more of her than she had done since her marriage. But by this time, Isabel's needs and inclinations had considerably changed. It was not at present to Madame Murley that she would have applied for instruction. She had lost the desire to know this lady's clever trick. If she had troubles, she must keep them to herself. And if life was difficult, it would not make it easier to confess herself beaten. Madame Murley was doubtless of great use to herself and an ornament to any circle. But was she? Would she be of use to others in periods of refined embarrassment? The best way to profit by her friend, this indeed Isabel had always thought, was to imitate her, to be as firm and bright as she. She recognized no embarrassments. And Isabel, considering this fact, determined for the 50th time to brush aside her own. It seemed to her too, on the renewal of an intercourse which had virtually been interrupted, that her old alley was different, was almost detached, pushing to the extreme, a sudden rather artificial fear of being indiscreet. Ralph Tauchet, we know, had been of the opinion that she was prone to exaggeration, to forcing the note was apt, in the vulgar phrase to overdo it. Isabel had never admitted this charge, had never indeed quite understood it. Madame Murley's conduct, to her perception, always bore the stamp of good taste, was always quite. But in this matter of not wishing to intrude upon the inner life of the Osmond family, it at last occurred to our young woman that she overdid a little, that of course was not the best taste that was rather violent. She remembered too much that Isabel was married, that she had now other interests, that though she, Madame Murley, had known Gilbert Osmond and his little pansy very well, better almost than any one, she was not after all of the inner circle. She was on her guard, she never spoke of their affairs till she was asked, even pressed, as when her opinion was wanted. She had a dread of seeming to meddle. Madame Murley was as candid as we know and one day she candidly expressed this dread to Isabel. I must be on my guard, she said. I might so easily, without suspecting it, offend you. You would be right to be offended, even if my intentions would have been of the purest. I must not forget that I knew your husband long before you did. I must not let that betray me. If you were a silly woman, you might be jealous. You are not a silly woman, I know that perfectly, but neither am I. Therefore I am determined not to get into trouble. A little harms very soon done, a mistakes made before one knows it. Of course, if I had wished to make love to your husband, I had 10 years to do it and nothing to prevent. So it isn't likely I shall begin today when I am so much less attractive than I was. But if I were to annoy you by seeming to take a place that doesn't belong to me, you wouldn't make that reflection. You'd simply say I was forgetting certain differences. I'm determined not to forget them. Suddenly a good friend isn't always thinking of that. One doesn't suspect one's friends of injustice. I won't suspect you, my dear, in the least, but I suspect human nature. Don't think I make myself uncomfortable. I'm not always watching myself. I think I sufficiently prove it in talking to you as I do now. All I wish to say is, however, that if you were to be jealous, that's the form it would take. I should be sure to think it was a little my fault. It certainly wouldn't be your husband's. Isabel had had three years to think over Mrs. Tautchett's theory that Madame Murley had made Gilbert Ossman's marriage. We know how she had at first received it. Madame Murley might have made Gilbert Ossman's marriage, but she certainly had not made Isabel Archer's. That was the work of Isabel Scarcely-New-Watt of nature, providence, fortune, of the eternal mystery of things. It was true her aunt's complaint had been not so much of Madame Murley's activity as of her duplicity. She had brought about the strange event and then she had denied her guilt. Such guilt would not have been great to Isabel's mind. She could not make a crime of Madame Murley's having been the producing cause of the most important friendship she had ever formed. This had occurred to her just before her marriage, after her little discussion with her aunt and at a time when she was still capable of that large inward reference, the tone almost of the philosophic historian to her scant young annals. If Madame Murley had desired her change of state, she could only say it had been a very happy thought. With her, moreover, she had been perfectly straightforward. She had never concealed her high opinion of Gilbert Ossman. After their union, Isabel discovered that her husband took a less convenient view of the matter. He seldom consented to finger in talk this roundest and smoothest bead of their social rosary. Don't you like Madame Murley? Isabel had once said to him, she thinks a great deal of you. I'll tell you once for all, Ossman had answered. I liked her once better than I do today. I'm tired of her and I'm rather ashamed of it. She's so almost unnaturally good. I'm glad she's not in Italy. It makes for relaxation, for a sort of moral detente. Don't talk of her too much. It seems to bring her back. She'll come back in plenty of time. Madame Murley, in fact, had come back before it was too late, too late. I mean to recover whatever advantage she might have lost. But meantime, if, as I have said, she was sensibly different. Isabel's feelings were also not quite the same. Her consciousness of the situation was as acute as of old, but it was much less satisfying. A dissatisfied mind, whatever else it may miss, is rarely in want of reasons. They bloom as thick as buttercups in June. The fact of Madame Murley's having had a hand in Gilbert Ossman's marriage ceased to be one of her titles to consideration. It might have been written, after all, that there was not so much to thank her for. As time went on, there was less and less. And Isabel once said to herself that perhaps without her, these things would not have been. That reflection, indeed, was instantly stifled. She knew an immediate horror at having made it. Whatever happens to me, let me not be unjust, she said. Let me bear my burdens myself and not shift them upon others. This disposition was tested eventually by that ingenious apology of her present conduct, which Madame Murley saw fit to make and of which I have given a sketch. For there was something irritating. There was almost an air of mockery in her neat discriminations and clear convictions. In Isabel's mind today, there was nothing clear. There was a confusion of regrets, a complication of fears. She felt helpless as she turned away from her friend who had just made the statements I have quoted. Madame Murley knew so little what she was thinking of. She was herself moreover so unable to explain. Jealous of her? Jealous of her with Kilbert? The idea just then suggested no near reality. She almost wished jealously had been possible. It would have made in a manner for refreshment. Wasn't it in a manner one of the symptoms of happiness? Madame Murley, however, was wise. So wise that she might have been pretending to know Isabel better than Isabel knew herself. This young woman had always been fertile in resolutions, any of them of an elevated character, but at no period had the flourished in the privacy of her heart more richly than today. It is true that they all had a family likeness. They might have been summed up in the determination that if she was to be unhappy, it should not be by a fault of her own. Her poor winged spirit had always had a great desire to do its best, and it had not, as yet, been seriously discouraged. It wished, therefore, to hold fast to justice, not to pay itself by petty revenges. To associate Madame Murley with its disappointment would be a petty revenge, especially as the pleasure to be derived from that would be perfectly insincere. It might feed her sense of bitterness, but it would not loosen her bonds. It was impossible to pretend that she had not acted with her eyes open. If ever a girl was a free agent, she had been. A girl in love was doubtless, not a free agent, but the sole source of her mistake had been within herself. There had been no plot, no snare. She had looked and considered and chosen. When a woman had made such a mistake, there was only one way to repair it, just immensely. Oh, with the highest grandeur to accept it. One folly was enough, especially when it was to last forever. A second one would not much set it off. In this vow of reticence, there was a sudden nobleness which kept Isabel going. But Madame Murley had been right for all that in taking her precautions. One day, about a month after Ralph Touchett's arrival in Rome, Isabel came back from a walk with Pansy. It was not only a part of her general determination to be just that she was at present, very thankful for Pansy. It was also a part of her tenderness for things that were pure and weak. Pansy was dear to her, and there was nothing else in her life that had the rightness of the young creature's attachment or the sweetness of her own clearness about it. It was like a soft presence, like a small hand in her own. On Pansy's part, it was more than an affection. It was a kind of ardent coercive faith. On her own side, her sense of the girl's dependence was more than a pleasure. It operated as a definite reason when motives threatened to fail her. She had said to herself that we must take our duty where we find it, and that we must look for it as much as possible. Pansy's sympathy was a direct admonition. It seemed to say that here was an opportunity, not eminent perhaps, but unmistakable. Yet an opportunity for what Isabel could hardly have said in general to be more for the child than the child was able to be for herself. Isabel could have smiled in these days to remember that her little companion had once been ambiguous, for she now perceived that Pansy's ambiguities were simply her own grossness of vision. She had been unable to believe anyone could care so much, so extraordinarily much to please. But since then, she had seen this delicate faculty in operation, and now she knew what to think of it. It was the whole creature. It was a sort of genius. Pansy had no pride to interfere with it, and though she was constantly extending her conquest, she took no credit for them. The two were constantly together. Mrs. Osman was rarely seen without her stepdaughter. Isabel liked her company. It had the effect of once carrying a nose gate composed all of the same flower. And then, not to neglect Pansy, not under any provocation to neglect her, this she had made an article of religion. The young girl had every appearance of being happier in Isabel's society than in that of any one save her father, whom she admired with an intensity justified by the fact that, as paternity was an exquisite pleasure to Gilbert Osman, he had always been luxuriously mild. Isabel knew how Pansy liked to be with her, and how she studied the means of pleasing her. She had decided that the best way of pleasing her was negative, and consisted in not giving her trouble, a conviction which certainly could have had no reference to trouble already existing. She was therefore ingeniously passive and almost imaginatively docile. She was careful even to moderate the eagerness with which she assented to Isabel's propositions, and which might have implied that she could have thought otherwise. She never interrupted, never asked social questions, and though she delighted in approbation to the point of turning pale when it came to her, never held out her hand for it. She only looked toward it vestfully, an attitude which, as she grew older, made her eyes the prettiest in the world. When during the second winter at Palazzo Rocanera, she began to go to parties to dances. She always at a reasonable hour, lest Mrs. Osman should be tired, was the first to propose departure. Isabel appreciated the sacrifice of the late dances, for she knew her little companion had a passionate pleasure in this exercise, taking her steps to the music like a conscientious fairy. Society, moreover, had no drawbacks for her. She liked even the tiresome parts, the heat of ballrooms, the dullness of dinners, the crush at the door, the awkward waiting for the carriage. During the day in this vehicle, beside her stepmother, she sat in a small, fixed, appreciative posture, bending forward and faintly smiling as if she had been taken to drive for the first time. On the day I speak of, they had been driven out of one of the gates of the city and at the end of half an hour had left the carriage to await them by the roadside while they walked away over the short grass of the Campana, which even in the winter months is sprinkled with delicate flowers. This was almost a daily habit with Isabel, who was fond of a walk and had a swift length of step, though not so swift a one as on her first coming to Europe. It was not the form of exercise that Pancy loved best, but she liked it because she liked everything and she moved with a shorter undulation beside her father's wife, who afterwards on their return to Rome paid a tribute to her preferences by making the circuit of the Pincian or the Villa Borghese. She had gathered a handful of flowers in a sunny hollow far from the walls of Rome and on reaching Palazzo Rocanera, she went straight to her room to put them into water. Isabel passed into the drawing room, the one she herself usually occupied, the second in order from the large antechamber which was entered from the staircase and in which even Gilbert Osman's rich devices had not been able to correct a look of rather grand nudity. Just beyond the threshold of the drawing room, she stopped shot. The reason for her doing so being that she had received an impression, the impression had in strictness nothing unprecedented, but she felt it as something new and the soundlessness of her step gave her time to take in the scene before she interrupted it. Madame Murley was there in her bonnet and Gilbert Osman was talking to her. For a minute they were unaware she had come in. Isabel had often seen that before certainly, but what she had not seen or at least had not noticed was that their colloquy had for the moment converted itself into a sort of familiar silence for which she instantly perceived that her entrance would startle them. Madame Murley was standing on the rug a little way from the fire. Osman was in a deep chair leaning back and looking at her. Her head was erect as usual but her eyes were bent on his. What struck Isabel first was that he was sitting while Madame Murley stood. There was an anomaly in this that arrested her. Then she perceived that they had arrived at a desultory pause in their exchange of ideas and were musing face to face with the freedom of old friends who sometimes exchange ideas without uttering them. There was nothing to shock in this. They were old friends in fact but the thing made an image lasting only a moment like a sudden flicker of light. Their relative positions, their observed mutual gaze struck her as something detected but it was all over by the time she had fairly seen it. Madame Murley had seen her and had welcomed her without moving. Her husband on the other hand had instantly jumped up. He presently murmured something about wanting a walk and after having asked that visitor to excuse him left the room. I came to see you thinking you would have come in and as you hadn't I waited for you Madame Murley said. Didn't he ask you to sit down? Isabel asked with a smile. Madame Murley looked about her. It's very true I was going away. You must stay now. Certainly I came for a reason. I have something on my mind. I have told you that before Isabel said that it takes something extraordinary to bring you to this house. And you know what I have told you that whether I come or whether I stay away I have always the same motive the affection I bear you. Yes you have told me that. You look just now as if you can't believe it said Madame Murley. Ah! Isabel answered. The profoundity of your motives that's the last thing I doubt. You doubt sooner of the sincerity of my words. Isabel shook her head gravely. I know you have always been kind to me. As often as you would let me you don't always take it. Then one has to let you alone. It's not to do you a kindness however that I have come today. It's quite another affair. I have come to get rid of a trouble of my own to make it over to you. I have been talking to your husband about it. I am surprised at that. He doesn't like troubles. Especially other peoples. I know very well. But neither do you I suppose. At any rate whether you do or not you must help me. It's about poor Mr. Rosier. Ah! said Isabel reflectively. It's his trouble then. Not yours. He has succeeded in saddling me with it. He comes to see me ten times a week to talk about pansy. Yes, he wants to marry her. I know all about it. Madam Murley hesitated. I gathered from your husband that perhaps you didn't. How should he know what I know? He has never spoken to me of the matter. It's probably because he doesn't know how to speak of it. It's nevertheless the sort of question in which he is rarely at fault. Yes, because as a general thing he knows perfectly well what to think. Today he doesn't. Haven't you been telling him? Isabel asked. Madam Murley gave a bright voluntary smile. Do you know you are a little dry? Yes, I can't help it. Mr. Rosier has also talked to me. In that there is some reason. You are so near the child. Ah, said Isabel. For all the comfort I have given him if you think me dry I wonder what he thinks. I believe he thinks you can do more than you have done. I can do nothing. You can do more at least than I. I don't know what mysterious connection he may have discovered between me and pansy but he came to me from the first as if I held his fortune in my hand. Now he keeps coming back to spur me up to know what hope there is to pour out his feelings. He is very much in love, said Isabel. Very much for him. Very much for pansy you might say as well. Madam Murley dropped her eyes a moment. Don't you think she is attractive? The dearest little person possible but very limited. She ought to be all the easier for Mr. Rosier to love. Mr. Rosier is not unlimited. No, said Isabel. He has about the extent of one's pocket and kachif. The small ones with lace borders. Her humour had lately turned a good deal to sarcasm but in a moment she was ashamed of exercising it on so innocent an object as pansy's suitor. He is very kind, very honest, she presently added. And he is not such a fool as he seems. He assures me that she delights in him, said Madam Murley. I don't know, I have not asked her. You have never sounded her a little? It's not my place, it's her father's. Ah, you are too literal, said Madam Murley. I must judge for myself. Madam Murley gave her smile again. It isn't easy to help you. To help me? Said Isabel very seriously. What do you mean? It's easy to displease you. Don't you see how wise I am I notify you at any rate as I notified Osman that I wash my hands of the love affairs of Miss Pansy and Mr. Edward Rosier. Janey pokes Rayon Moy I can't talk to Pansy about him especially added Madam Murley as I don't think him a paragon of husbands. Isabel reflected a little after which with a smile you don't wash your hands then she said after which again she added in another tone. You can't, you are too much interested. Madam Murley slowly rose she had given Isabel a look as rapid as the intimation that had gleamed before our heroine a few moments before. Only this time the latter saw nothing. Ask him the next time and you will see. I can't ask him he has ceased to come to the house Gilbert has let him know that he is not welcome. Ah yes said Madam Murley I forgot that though it's the burden of his lamentation he says Osman has insulted him all the same she went on Osman doesn't dislike him so much as he thinks she had got up as if to close the conversation but she lingered looking about her and had evidently more to say Isabel perceived this and even at the point she had in view but Isabel also had her own reasons for not opening the way that must have pleased him if you have told him she answered smilingly. Certainly I have told him as far as that goes I have encouraged him I have preached patience have said that his case isn't desperate if he will only hold his tongue and be quiet unfortunately he has taken it into his head to be jealous jealous? Jealous of Lord Warburton who he says is always here Isabel who was tired had remained sitting but at this she also rose ah she exclaimed simply moving slowly to the fireplace Madam Murley observed her as she passed and while she stood a moment before the mantle glass and pushed into its place a wandering dress of hair poor Mr. Rosier keeps saying there's nothing impossible in Lord Warburton's falling in love with Pansy Madam Murley went on Isabel was silent a little she turned away from the glass it's true there's nothing impossible she returned at last gravely and more gently so I have had to admit to Mr. Rosier so too your husband thinks that I don't know ask him and you will see I shall not ask him pardon me I forgot you had pointed that out of course Madam Murley added you have had infinitely more observation of Lord Warburton's behaviour than I I see no reason why I should not tell you that he likes my stepped out very much Madam Murley gave one of her quick looks again like sir you mean as Mr. Rosier means I don't know how Mr. Rosier means but Lord Warburton has let me know that he is charmed with Pansy and you have never told us this observation was immediate precipitated it almost burst from Madam Murley's lips Isabel's eyes rested on her I suppose he will know in time Lord Warburton has a tongue and knows how to express himself Madam Murley instantly became conscious that she had spoken more quickly than usual and the reflection brought the colour to her cheek she gave that treacherous impulse time to subside and then said as if she had been thinking it over a little that would be better than marrying poor Mr. Rosier much better I think it would be very delightful it would be a great marriage it's really very kind of him very kind of him very simple little girl I don't see that it's very good of you but after all Pansy Osman after all Pansy Osman is the most attractive person he has ever known Isabel exclaimed Madam Murley's head and indeed she was justly bewildered ah a moment ago I thought you seem rather to disparage her I said she was limited and so is Lord Warburton so are we all if you come to that if it's no more than Pansy deserves all the better but if she fixes her affections on Mr. Rosier I won't admit that she deserves it that'll be too perverse Mr. Rosier's annuiscence Isabel cried abruptly I quite agree with you and I'm delighted to know that I'm not expected to feed his flame for the future when he calls on me my door shall be closed to him and gathering her mantle together Madam Murley prepared to depart she was checked however on her progress to the door by an inconsequential request from Isabel all the same you know be kind to him she lifted her shoulders and eyebrows and stood looking at her friend I don't understand your contradictions decidedly I shan't be kind to him for it'll be a false kindness I want to see her married to Lord Warburton you had better wait till he asks her if what you say is true he will ask her especially said Madam Murley in a moment if you make him if I make him it is quite in your power you have great influence with him Isabel frowned a little where did you learn that this douche told me not you never said Madam Murley smiling I suddenly never told you anything of the sort you might have done so so far as the opportunity went when we were by way of being confidential with each other but you really told me very little I have often thought so since Isabel had thought so too and sometimes with a certain satisfaction he didn't admit it now perhaps because she wished not to appear to exalt in it you seem to have had an excellent informant in my aunt she simply returned she let me know you had declined an offer of marriage from Lord Warburton because she was greatly vexed and was full of the subject of course I think you have done better in doing as you did but if you wouldn't marry Lord Warburton yourself wouldn't the reparation of helping him to marry someone else Isabel listened to this with a face that persisted in not reflecting the bright expressiveness of Madam Murley's but in a moment she said reasonably and gently enough I should be very glad indeed if as regards fancy it could be arranged upon which her companion who seemed to regard this as a speech of good omen embraced her more tenderly than might have been expected and triumphantly with you End of Chapter 40 Recording by Red Abras The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James, Volume 2 Chapter 41 Osmond touched on this matter that evening for the first time coming very late into the drawing-room where she was sitting alone they had spent the evening at home and Pansy had gone to bed he himself had been sitting since dinner in a small apartment in which he had arranged his books and which he called his study at ten o'clock Lord Warburton had come in as he always did when he knew from Isabelle that she was to be at home he was going somewhere else and he sat for half an hour Isabelle after asking him for news of Ralph said very little to him on purpose she wished him to talk with her step-daughter she pretended to read she even went after a little to the piano she asked herself if she mightn't leave the room she had come little by little to think well of the idea of Pansy's becoming the wife of the master of beautiful Lockely though at first it had not presented itself in a manner to excite her enthusiasm Madam Mail that afternoon had applied the match to an accumulation of inflammable material when Isabelle was unhappy she always looked about her partly from impulse and partly by theory for some form of positive exertion she could never rid herself of the sense that unhappiness was a state of disease of suffering as opposed to doing to do it hardly mattered what would therefore be an escape perhaps in some degree a remedy besides she wished to convince herself that she had done everything possible to content her husband she was determined not to be haunted by visions of his wife's limpness under appeal it would please him greatly to see Pansy married to an English nobleman and justly please him since this nobleman was so sound a character it seemed to Isabelle that if she could make it her duty to bring about such an event she should play the part of a good wife she wanted to be that she wanted to be able to believe sincerely and with proof of it that she had been that then such an undertaking had other recommendations it would occupy her and she desired occupation it would even amuse her and if she could really amuse herself she perhaps might be saved lastly it would be a service to Lord Warburton who evidently pleased himself greatly with the charming girl it was a little weird he should being what he was but there was no accounting for such impressions Pansy might captivate anyone anyone at least but Lord Warburton Isabelle would have thought her too small too slight perhaps even too artificial for that there was always a little of the doll about her and that was not what he had been looking for still who could say what men ever were looking for they looked for what they found they knew what pleased them only when they saw it no theory was valid in such matters and nothing was more unaccountable or more natural than anything else if he had cared for her it might seem odd he should care for Pansy who was so different but he had not cared for her so much as he had supposed or if he had he had completely got over it and it was natural that as that affair had failed he should think something of quite another sort might succeed enthusiasm as I say had not come at first to Isabelle but it came today and made her feel almost happy it was astonishing what happiness she could still find in the idea of procuring a pleasure for her husband it was a pity however that Edward Rosier had crossed their path at this reflection the light that had suddenly gleamed upon that path lost something of its brightness Isabelle was unfortunately assure that Pansy thought Mr. Rosier the nicest of all the young men as sure as if she had held an interview with her on the subject it was very tiresome she should be so sure when she had carefully abstained from informing herself almost as tiresome as that poor Mr. Rosier should have taken it into his own head he was certainly very inferior to Lord Warburton it was not the difference in fortune so much as the difference in the men the young American was really so light a weight he was much more of the type of the useless fine gentleman than the English nobleman it was true that there was no particular reason why Pansy should marry a statesman still if a statesman admired her that was his affair and she would make a perfect little pearl of a pure ass it may seem to the reader that Mrs. Osmond had grown of a sudden strangely cynical for she ended by saying to herself that this difficulty could probably be arranged an impediment that was embodied in poor Rosier could not anyhow present itself as a dangerous one there were always means of levelling secondary obstacles Isabelle was perfectly aware that she had not taken the measure of Pansy's tenacity which might prove to be inconveniently great but she inclined to see her as rather letting go under suggestion than as clutching under deprecation since she had certainly the faculty of assent developed in a very much higher degree than that of protest she would cling, yes she would cling but it really mattered to her very little what she clung to Lord Warburton would do as well as Mr. Rosier especially as she seemed quite to like him she had expressed this sentiment to Isabelle without a single reservation she had said she thought that his conversation most interesting he had told her all about India his manner to Pansy had been of the rightest and easiest Isabelle noticed that for herself as she also observed that he talked to her not in the least in a patronising way reminding himself of her youth and simplicity but quite as if she understood his subjects with that sufficiency with which she followed those of the fashionable operas this went far enough for attention to the music and the baritone he was careful only to be kind he was as kind as he had been to another fluttered young jit at Garden Court a girl might well be touched by that she remembered how she herself had been touched and said to herself that if she had been as simple as Pansy the impression would have been deeper still she had not been simple when she refused him that operation had been as complicated as later her acceptance of Osmond had been Pansy however in spite of her simplicity really did understand and was glad that Lord Warburton should talk to her not about her partners and bouquets but about the state of Italy the condition of the peasantry the famous grist tax the pelagra his impressions of Roman society she looked at him as she drew her needle through her tapestry with missive eyes and when she lowered them she gave little quiet oblique glances at his person his hands his feet his clothes as if she were considering him even his person Isabelle might have reminded her was better than Mr. Rosiers but Isabelle contented herself at such moments with wondering where this gentleman was he came no more at all today the hold it had taken of her the idea of assisting her husband to be pleased it was surprising for a variety of reasons which I shall presently touch upon on the evening I speak of while Lord Warburton sat there she had been on the point of taking the great step of going out of the room and leaving her companions alone I say the great step because it was in this light that Gilbert Osmond would have regarded it and Isabelle was trying as much as possible to take her husband's view she succeeded after a fashion but she fell short of the point I mention after all she couldn't rise to it something held her and made this impossible it was not exactly that it would be base or insidious for women as a general thing practiced such maneuvers with a perfectly good conscience and Isabelle was instinctively much more true than false to the common genius of her sex there was a vague doubt that interposed a sense that she was not quite sure so she remained in the drawing-room and after a while Lord Warburton went off to his party of which he promised to give Pansy a full account on the morrow after he had gone she wondered if she had prevented something which would have happened if she had absented herself for a quarter of an hour she pronounced, always mentally that when their distinguished visitor should wish her to go away he would easily find means to let her know it Pansy said nothing whatever about him after he had gone and Isabelle studiously said nothing that she had taken a vow of reserve until after he should have declared himself he was a little longer in coming to this than might seem to accord with the description he had given Isabelle of his feelings Pansy went to bed and Isabelle had to admit that she could not now guess what her step-daughter was thinking of her transparent little companion was for the moment not to be seen through she remained alone looking at the fire until at the end of half an hour her husband came in he moved about a while in silence and then sat down he looked at the fire like herself but she now had transferred her eyes from the flickering flame in the chimney to Osman's face and she watched him while he kept his silence covert observation had become a habit with her an instinct of which it is not an exaggeration to say that it was allied to that of self-defense had made it habitual she wished as much as possible to know his thoughts to know what he would say beforehand so that she might prepare her answer preparing answers had not been her strong point of old she had rarely in this respect got further than thinking afterwards of clever things she might have said but she had learnt caution learnt it in a measure from her husband's very countenance it was the same face she had looked into with eyes equally earnest perhaps but less penetrating on the terrace of a Florentine villa except that Osman had grown much closer since his marriage he still however might strike one as very distinguished has Lord Warburton been here he presently asked yes he stayed half an hour did he see Pansy yes he sat on the sofa beside her did he talk with her much he talked almost only to her it seems to me he's attentive isn't that what you call it I don't call it anything said Isabel I've waited for you to give it a name that's a consideration you don't always show Osman answered after a moment I've determined this time to try and act as you'd like I've so often failed of that Osman turned his head slowly looking at her are you trying to quarrel with me no I'm trying to live at peace nothing's more easy you know I don't quarrel myself what do you call it when you try to make me angry Isabel asked I don't try if I've done so it has been the most natural thing in the world moreover I'm not in the least trying now Isabel smiled it doesn't matter I've determined never to be angry again that's an excellent resolve your temper isn't good no it's not good she pushed away the book she had been reading and took up the band of tapestry Pansy had left on the table that's partly why I've not spoken to you about this business of my daughters Osman said designating Pansy in the manner that was most frequent with him I was afraid I should encounter opposition that you too would have views on the subject I've sent little Rosier about his business you were afraid I'd plead for Mr. Rosier haven't you noticed that I've never spoken to you of him I've never given you the chance we've so little conversation in these days I know he was an old friend of yours yes he's an old friend of mine Isabel cared little more for him than for the tapestry that she held in her hand but it was true that he was an old friend with her husband she felt a desire not to extenuate such ties he had a way of expressing contempt for them which fortified her loyalty to them even when, as in the present case they were in themselves insignificant she sometimes felt a sort of passion of tenderness for memories which had led no other merit than that they belonged to her unmarried life but as regards Pansy she added in a moment I've given him no encouragement that's fortunate Osmond observed fortunate for me I suppose you mean for him it matters little there's no use talking of him Osmond said as I tell you I've turned him out yes but a lover outside's always a lover he's sometimes even more of one Mr. Rosier still has hope he's welcome to the comfort of it my daughter has only to sit perfectly quiet to become Lady Warburton should you like that Isabel asked with a simplicity which was not so affected as it may appear she was resolved to assume nothing for Osmond had a way of unexpectedly turning her assumptions against her the intensity with which he would like his daughter to become Lady Warburton had been the very basis of her own recent reflections of herself she would recognize nothing until Osmond should have put it into words she would not take for granted with him that he thought Lord Warburton a prize worth an amount of effort that was unusual among the Osmonds it was Gilbert's constant intimation that for him nothing in life was a prize that he treated as from equal to equal with the most distinguished people in the world and that his daughter had only to pick out her to pick out a prince it cost him therefore a lapse from consistency to say explicitly that he yearned for Lord Warburton and that if this nobleman should escape his equivalent might not be found with which moreover it was another of his customary implications that he was never inconsistent he would have liked his wife to glide over the point but strangely enough now that she was face to face with him and although an hour before she had almost invented a scheme for pleasing him Isabel was not accommodating would not glide and yet she knew exactly the effect on his mind of her question it would operate as a humiliation never mind he was terribly capable of humiliating her all the more so that he was also capable of waiting for great opportunities and of showing sometimes an almost different to small ones Isabel perhaps took a small opportunity because she would not have availed herself of a great one Osmond at present acquitted himself very honourably I should like it extremely it would be a great marriage and then Lord Warburton has another advantage he's an old friend of yours it would be present for him to come into the family it's very odd Pansy's admirers they all be your old friends it's natural that they should come to see me in coming to see me they see Pansy seeing her it's natural they should fall in love with her so I think but you're not bound to do so if she should marry Lord Warburton I should be very glad Isabel went on frankly he's an excellent man you say however that she has only to sit perfectly still if she loses Mr. Rosier she may jump up Osmond appeared to give no heed to this he sat gazing at the fire Pansy would like to be a great lady he remarked in a moment with a certain tenderness of tone she wishes above all to please he added to please Mr. Rosier perhaps no to please me me too a little I think said Isabel she has a great opinion of you but she'll do what I like if you're sure of that it's very well she went on meantime said Osmond I should like our distinguished visitor to speak he has spoken to me he has told me it would be a great pleasure to him to believe she could care for him Osmond turned his head quickly but at first he said nothing then why didn't you tell me that you asked sharply there was no opportunity you know how we live I've taken the first chance that has offered did you speak to him of Rosier oh yes a little that was hardly necessary I thought it best he should know so that and Isabel paused so that what so that he might act accordingly so that he might back out do you mean no advance while there's yet time that's not the effect it seems to have had you should have patience said Isabel you know Englishmen are shy this one's not he was not when he made love to you she had been afraid Osmond would speak of that it was disagreeable to her I beg your pardon he was extremely so she returned he answered nothing for some time she took her book and fingered the pages while she sat silent and occupied herself with Pansy's tapestry you must have a great deal of influence with him Osmond went on at last the moment you really wish it you can bring him to the point this was more offensive still but she felt the great naturalness of his saying it and it was after all extremely like what she had said to herself why should I have influence she asked what have I ever done to put him under an obligation to me you refuse to marry him said Osmond with his eyes on his book I must not presume too much on that she replied he threw down the book presently and got up standing before the fire with his hands behind him well I hold that it lies in your hands I shall leave it there with a little goodwill you may manage it take that over and remember how much I count on you he waited a little to give her time to answer but she answered nothing and he presently strolled out of the room End of Chapter 41