Page:The Portrait of a Lady (London, Macmillan & Co., 1881) Volume 3.djvu/199

 "So I believed—though it was hard to believe. Has it never occurred to you that he has been her lover?"

"I don't know. Something has occurred to me. Perhaps it was that."

"She has been wonderfully clever about Pansy!" cried the Countess.

"That thing has never occurred to me," said Isabel. "And as it is—I don't understand."

She spoke in a low, thoughtful tone, and the poor Countess was equally surprised and disappointed at the effect of her revelation. She had expected to kindle a conflagration, and as yet she had barely extracted a spark. Isabel seemed more awestricken than anything else.

"Don't you perceive that the child could never pass for her husband's?" the Countess asked. "They had been separated too long for that, and M. Merle had gone to some far country; I think to South America. If she had ever had children—which I am not sure of—she had lost them. On the other hand, circumstances made it convenient enough for Osmond to acknowledge the little girl. His wife was dead—very true; but she had only been dead a year, and what was more natural than that she should have left behind a pledge of their affection? With the aid of a change of residence—he had been living at Naples, and he left it for ever—the little fable was easily set going. My poor sister-in-law, who was in her grave, couldn't help herself, and the real mother, to save her reputation, renounced all visible property in the child."

"Ah, poor creature!" cried Isabel, bursting into tears. It was a long time since she had shed any; she had suffered a reaction from weeping. But now they gushed with an abundance in which the Countess Gemini found only another discomfiture.