Page:The Portrait of a Lady (London, Macmillan & Co., 1881) Volume 2.djvu/154

 "You are right," Madame Merle reflected audibly. "I really think you wish to be kind to the child."

"I wish very much to be kind to her."

"Go and see her, then; no one will be the wiser. And tell her I would have come if you had not.—Or rather," Madame Merle added—"don't tell her; she won't care."

As Isabel drove, in the publicity of an open vehicle, along the charming winding way which led to Mr. Osmond's hill-top, she wondered what Madame Merle had meant by no one being the wiser. Once in a while, at large intervals, this lady, in whose discretion, as a general thing, there was something almost brilliant, dropped a remark of ambiguous quality, struck a note that sounded false. What cared Isabel Archer for the vulgar judgments of obscure people? and did Madame Merle suppose that she was capable of doing a deed in secret? Of course not—she must have meant something else—something which in the press of the hours that preceded her departure she had not had time to explain. Isabel would return to this some day; there were certain things as to which she liked to be clear. She heard Pansy strumming at the piano in another apartment, as she 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