Page:The Portrait of a Lady (London, Macmillan & Co., 1881) Volume 2.djvu/181

 "What has she done to you?"

"She has deceived me. She had as good as promised me to prevent your engagement."

"She couldn't have prevented it."

"She can do anything; that is what I have always liked her for. I knew she could play any part; but I understood that she played them one by one. I didn't understand that she would play two at the same time."

"I don't know what part she may have played to you," Isabel said; "that is between yourselves. To me she has been honest, and kind, and devoted."

"Devoted, of course; she wished you to marry her candidate. She told me that she was watching you only in order to interpose."

"She said that to please you," the girl answered; conscious, however, of the inadequacy of the explanation.

"To please me by deceiving me? She knows me better. Am I pleased to-day?"

"I don't think you are ever much pleased," Isabel was obliged to reply. "If Madame Merle knew you would learn the truth, what had she to gain by insincerity?"

"She gained time, as you see. While I waited for her to interfere you were marching away, and she was really beating the drum."

"That is very well. But by your own admission you saw I was marching, and even if she had given the alarm you would not have tried to stop me."

"No, but some one else would."

"Whom do you mean?" Isabel asked, looking very hard at her aunt.

Mrs. Touchett's little bright eyes, active as they usually were, sustained her gaze rather than returned it.