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Rh "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 is a great bore. There is no hurry."

"I will tell him that you will take time and think it over."

"No, don't do that. He will hang on."

"If I discourage him he will do the same."

"Yes, but in the one case he will try and talk and explain; which would be exceedingly tiresome. In the other he will 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 enervating, with his eternal majolica."

Madame Merle dropped her eyes, with a faint smile. "He's a gentleman, he has a charming temper; and, after all, an income of forty thousand francs"

"It's misery—genteel misery," Osmond broke in. It's not what I have dreamed of for Pansy."

"Very good, then. He has promised me not to speak to her."

"Do you believe him?" Osmond asked, absent-mindedly.

"Perfectly. Pansy has thought a great deal about him; but I don't suppose you think that matters."

"I don't think it matters at all; but neither do I believe she has thought about him."

"That opinion is more convenient," said Madame Merle, quietly.

"Has she told you that she is in love with him?"

"For what do you take her? And for what do you take me?" Madame Merle 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, 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 am not afraid that she will not do it."

"Well then where is 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. Do it yourself."

"Very good; I will put him into a corner and allow him so much a day." Madame Merle had, for the most part, while they talked, been glancing about her; it was her habit, in this