Page:The Portrait of a Lady (London, Macmillan & Co., 1881) Volume 2.djvu/54

 "Exactly; but yourself includes so many other selves—so much of everything. I never knew a person whose life touched so many other lives."

"What do you call one's life?" asked Madame Merle. "One's appearance, one's movements, one's engagements, one's society?"

"I call your life—your ambitions," said Osmond.

Madame Merle looked a moment at Pansy. "I wonder whether she understands that," she murmured.

"You see she can't stay with us!" And Pansy's father gave a rather joyless smile. " Go into the garden, ma bonne, and pluck a flower or two for Madame Merle," he went on, in French.

"That's just what I wanted to do," Pansy exclaimed, rising with promptness and noiselessly departing. Her father followed her to the open door, stood a moment watching her, and then came back, but remained standing, or rather strolling to and fro, as if to cultivate a sense of freedom which in another attitude might be wanting.

"My ambitions are principally for you," said Madame Merle, looking up at him with a certain nobleness of expression.

"That comes back to what I say. I am part of your life—I and a thousand others. You are not selfish—I can't admit that. If you were selfish, what should I be? What epithet would properly describe me?"

"You are indolent. For me that is your worst fault."

"I am afraid it is really my best."

"You don't care," said Madame Merle, gravely.

"No; I don't think I care much. What sort of a fault do you call that? My indolence, at any rate, was one of the reasons I didn't go to Rome. But it was only one of them."

"It is not of importance—to me at least—that you didn't