Page:The Portrait of a Lady (London, Macmillan & Co., 1881) Volume 2.djvu/49

 "She came to see me at the convent," said the young girl, before her father's visitors had time to reply.

"I have been more than once, Pansy," Madame Merle answered. "Am I not your great friend in Rome?"

"I remember the last time best," said Pansy, "because you told me I should leave the place."

"Did you tell her that?" the child's father asked.

"I hardly remember. I told her what I thought would please her. I have been in Florence a week. I hoped you would come and see me."

"I should have done so if I had known you were here. One doesn't know such things by inspiration—though I suppose one ought. You had better sit down."

These two speeches were made in a peculiar tone of voice—a tone half-lowered, and carefully quiet, but as from habit rather than from any definite need.

Madame Merle looked about her, choosing her seat.

"You are going to the door with these women? Let me of course not interrupt the ceremony. Je vous salue, mesdames," she added, in French, to the nuns, as if to dismiss them.

"This lady is a great friend of ours; you will have seen her at the convent," said the host. "We have much faith in her judgment, and she will help me to decide whether my daughter shall return to you at the end of the holidays."

"I hope you will decide in our favour, madam," the sister in spectacles ventured to remark.

"That is Mr. Osmond's pleasantry; I decide nothing," said Madame Merle, smiling still. "I believe you have a very good school, but Miss Osmond's friends must remember that she is meant for the world."

"That is what I have told monsieur," sister Catherine