Page:The Portrait of a Lady (London, Macmillan & Co., 1881) Volume 2.djvu/52

 in and closed the door; then, without looking at Madame Merle, he pushed one or two chairs back into their places.

His visitor waited a moment for him to speak, watching him as he moved about. Then at last she said—"I hoped you would have come to Rome. I thought it possible you would have come to fetch Pansy away."

"That was a natural supposition; but I am afraid it is not the first time I have acted in defiance of your calculations."

"Yes," said Madame Merle, "I think you are very perverse."

Mr. Osmond busied himself for a moment in the room—there was plenty of space in it to move about—in the fashion of a man mechanically seeking pretexts for not giving an attention which may be embarrassing. Presently, however, he had exhausted his pretexts; there was nothing left for him—unless he took up a book—but to stand with his hands behind him, looking at Pansy. "Why didn't you come and see the last of mamman Catherine?" he asked of her abruptly, in French.

Pansy hesitated a moment, glancing at Madame Merle. "I asked her to stay with me," said this lady, who had seated herself again in another place.

"Ah, that was better," said Osmond. Then, at last, he dropped into a chair, and sat looking at Madame Merle; leaning forward a little, with his elbows on the edge of the arms and his hands interlocked.

"She is going to give me some gloves," said Pansy.

"You needn't tell that to every one, my dear," Madame Merle observed.

"You are very kind to her," said Osmond. "She is supposed to have everything she needs."

"I should think she had had enough of the nuns."