Page:The Portrait of a Lady (1882).djvu/284

276 276 THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY. herself was ushered into Mr. Osmond's drawing-room ; the little girl was " practising," and Isabel was pleased to think that she performed this duty faithfully. Presently Pansy came in, smoothing down her frock, and did the honours of her father's house with the wide-eyed conscientiousness of a sensitive child. Isabel sat there for half-an-hour, and Pansy entertained her like a little lady not chattering, but conversing, and showing the same courteous interest in Isabel's affairs that Isabel was so good as to take in hers. Isabel wondered at her ; as I have said before, she had never seen a child like that. How well she had been taught, said our keen young lady, how prettily she had been directed and fashioned ; and yet how simple, how natural, how innocent she has been kept ! Isabel was fond of psycho- logical problems, and it had pleased her, up to this time, to be in doubt as to whether Miss Pansy were not all-knowing. Was her infantine serenity but the perfection of self-consciousness ? Was it put on to please her father's visitor, or was it the direct expression of a little neat, orderly character 1 ? The hour that Isabel spent in Mr. Osmond's beautiful empty, dusky rooms the windows had been half-darkened, to keep out the heat, and here and there, through an easy crevice, the splendid summer day peeped in, lighting a gleam of faded colour or tarnished gilt in the rich-looking gloom Isabel's interview with the daughter of the house, I say, effectually settled this question. Pansy was really a blank page, a pure white surface ; she was not clever enough for precocious coquetries. She was not clever Isabel could see that ; she only had nice feelings. There was some- thing touching about her ; Isabel had felt it before ; she would be an easy victim of fate. She would have no will, no power to resist, no sense of her own importance ; only an exquisite taste, and an appreciation, equally exquisite, of such affection as might be bestowed upon her. She would easily be mystiUed, easily crushed ; her force would be solely in her power to cling. She moved about the place with Isabel, who had asked leave to walk through the other rooms again, where Pansy gave her judgment on several works of art. She talked about her prospects, her occupations, her father's intentions ; she was not egotistical, but she felt the propriety of giving Isabel the information that so observant a visitor would naturally expect. " Please tell me," she said, " did papa, in Rome, go to see Madame Catherine 1 ? He told me he would if he had time. Perhaps he had not time. Papa likes a great deal of time. He wished to speak about my education ; it isn't finished yet, you know. I don't know what they can do with me more ; but it