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214 214 THE POETRAIT OF A LADY. Madame Merle, however, thought she could undertake that for Isabel he would be brilliant. He was easily bored too easily, and dull people always put him out ; but a quick and cultivated girl like Isabel would give him a stimulus which was too absent from his life. At any rate, he was a person to know. One should not attempt to live in Italy without making a friend of Gilbert Osmond, who knew more about the country than any one except two or three German professors. And if they had more knowledge than he, he had infinitely more taste ; he had a taste which was quite by itself. Isabel remembered that her friend had spoken of him during their multifarious colloquies at Gardencourt, and wondered a little what was the nature of the tie that united them. She was inclined to imagine that Madame Merle's ties were peculiar, and such a possibility was a part of the interest created by this suggestive woman. As regards her relations with Mr. Osmond, however, Madame Merle hinted at nothing but a long-established and tranquil friendship. Isabel said that she should be happy to know a person who had enjoyed her friend's confidence for so many years. "You ought to' see a great many men," Madame Merle remarked ; " you ought to see as many as possible, so as to get used to them." " Used to them ? " Isabel repeated, with that exceedingly serious gaze which sometimes seemed to proclaim that she was deficient in a sense of humour an intimation which at other moments she effectively refuted. " I am not afraid of them 1 " " Used to them, I mean, so as to despise them. That's what one comes to with most of them. You will pick out, for your society, the few whom you don't despise." This remark had a bitterness which Madame Merle did not often allow herself to betray ; but Isabel was not alarmed by it, for she had never supposed that, as one saw more of the world, the sentiment of respect became the most active of one's emotions. This sentiment was excited, however, by the beautiful city of Florence, which pleased her not less than Madame Merle had promised ; and if her unassisted perception had not been able to gauge its charms, she had clever companions to call attention to latent merits. She was in no want, indeed, of aesthetic illumin- ation, for Ralph found it a pleasure which renewed his own earlier sensations, to act as cicerone to his eager young kinswoman. Madame Merle remained at home ; she had seen the treasures of Florence so often, and she had always something to do. But she talked of all things with remarkable vividness of memory she remembered the right-hand angle in the large Perugino, and the position of the hands of the Saint Elizabeth in the picture