Page:The Portrait of a Lady (London, Macmillan & Co., 1881) Volume 2.djvu/61

 "What could be more asinine than that? Did you say that she was pretty?" Osmond went on.

"Yes; but I won't say it again, lest you should be disappointed. Come and make a beginning; that is all I ask of you."

"A beginning of what?"

Madame Merle was silent a moment. "I want you of course to marry her."

"The beginning of the end! Well, I will see for myself. Have you told her that?"

"For what do you take me? She is a very delicate piece of machinery."

"Really," said Osmond, after some meditation, "I don't understand your ambitions."

"I think you will understand this one after you have seen Miss Archer. Suspend your judgment till then." Madame Merle, as she spoke, had drawn near the open door of the garden, where she stood a moment, looking out. "Pansy has grown pretty," she presently added.

"So it seemed to me."

"But she has had enough of the convent."

"I don't know," said Osmond. "I like what they have made of her. It's very charming."

"That's not the convent. It's the child's nature."

"It's the combination, I think. She's as pure as a pearl."

"Why doesn't she come back with my flowers, then?" Madame Merle asked. "She is not in a hurry."

"We will go and get them," said her companion.

"She doesn't like me," murmured Madame Merle, as she raised her parasol, and they passed into the garden.