Chapter 20 of The Portrait of a Lady, Volume 1. Some fortnight after this, Madame Merle drove up in a handsome cab to the house in Winchester Square. As she descended from her vehicle, she observed, suspended between the dining room windows, a large, neat wooden tablet on whose fresh black ground were inscribed in white paint the words, this noble, freehold mansion to be sold, with the name of the agent to whom application should be made. They certainly lose no time, said the visitor, as, after sounding the big brass knocker, she waited to be admitted. It's a practical country. And within the house, as she ascended to the drawing room, she perceived numerous signs of abdication, pictures removed from the walls and placed upon sofas, windows undraped, and floors laid bare. Mrs. Touchett, presently received her and intimated, in a few words, that condolences might be taken for granted. I know what you're going to say. He was a very good man, but I know it better than anyone, because I gave him more chance to show it. In that I think I was a good wife, Mrs. Touchett added, that at the end her husband apparently recognized this fact. He has treated me most liberally, she said. I won't say more liberally than I expected, because I didn't expect. You know that as a general thing I don't expect, but he chose, I presume, to recognize the fact that though I lived much abroad and mingled, you may say freely, in foreign life, I never exhibited the smallest preference for anyone else. For anyone but yourself, Madame Merle mentally observed, but the reflection was perfectly inaudible. I never sacrificed my husband to another, Mrs. Touchett continued with her stout curtness. Oh, no, thought Madame Merle, you never did anything for another. There was a certain cynicism in these mute comments, which demands an explanation. The more so as they are not in accord, either with the view, somewhat superficial perhaps, that we have hitherto enjoyed of Madame Merle's character or with the literal facts of Mrs. Touchett's history. The more so, too, as Madame Merle had a well-founded conviction that her friend's last remark was not in the least to be construed as a side thrust at herself. The truth is that the moment she had crossed the threshold she received an impression that Mr. Touchett's death had had subtle consequences and that these consequences had been profitable to a little circle of persons among whom she was not numbered. Of course it was an event which would naturally have consequences. Her imagination had more than once rested upon this fact during her stay at Garden Court. But it had been one thing to foresee such a matter mentally and another to stand among its massive records. The idea of a distribution of property she would almost have said of spoils, just now oppressed upon her senses and irritated her with a sense of exclusion. I am far from wishing to picture her as one of the hungry mouths or envious hearts of the general herd, but we have already learned of her having desires that had never been satisfied. If she had been questioned she would, of course, have admitted, with a fine, proud smile, that she had not the faintest claim to share in Mr. Touchett's relics. There was never anything in the world between us, she would have said. There was never that, poor man, with a fillip of her thumb and her third finger. I hasten to add, moreover, that if she couldn't at the moment keep from quite perversely yearning she was careful not to betray herself. She had, after all, as much sympathy for Mrs. Touchett's gains as for her losses. He has left me this house, the newly-made widow said, but of course I shall not live in it. I have a much better one in Florence. The will was opened only three days since, but I've already offered the house for sale. I've also a share in the bank, but I don't yet understand if I'm obliged to leave it there. If not, I shall certainly take it out. Ralph, of course, has garden-court, but I'm not sure that he'll have the means to keep up the place. He's naturally left very well off, but his father has given away an immense deal of money. There are bequests to a string of third cousins in Vermont. Ralph, however, is very fond of garden-court and would be quite capable of living there in the summer, with a maid of all work and a gardener's boy. There's one remarkable clause in my husband's will, Mrs. Touchett added. He has left my niece a fortune. A fortune? Madame Merle softly repeated. Isabelle steps into something like seventy thousand pounds. Madame Merle's hands were clasped in her lap. At this she raised them, still clasped, and held them a moment against her bosom while her eyes, a little dilated, fixed themselves on those of her friend. Ah! she cried, the clever creature. Mrs. Touchett gave her a quick look. What do you mean by that? For an instant Madame Merle's color rose and she dropped her eyes. It certainly is clever to achieve such results without an effort. There assuredly was no effort. Don't call it an achievement. Madame Merle was seldom guilty of the awkwardness of retracting what she had said. Her wisdom was shown rather in maintaining it and placing it in a favorable light. My dear friend Isabelle would certainly not have had seventy thousand pounds left her if she had not been the most charming girl in the world. Her charm includes great cleverness. She never dreamed, I'm sure, of my husband's doing anything for her, and I never dreamed of it either, for he never spoke to me of his intention, Mrs. Touchett said. She had no claim upon him whatever. It was no great recommendation to him that she was my niece. Whatever she achieved, she achieved unconsciously. Ah! rejoined Madame Merle. Those are the greatest strokes. Mrs. Touchett reserved her opinion. The girl's fortunate. I don't deny that. But for the present she's simply stupefied. Do you mean that she doesn't know what to do with the money? That I think she has hardly considered. She doesn't know what to think about the matter at all. It has been as if a big gun were suddenly fired off behind her. She's feeling herself to see if she be hurt. It's but three days since she received a visit from the principal, executor, who came in person, very gallantly, to notify her. He told me afterward, that when he made his little speech she suddenly burst into tears. The money's to remain in the affairs of the bank, and she's to draw the interest. Madame Merle shook her head with a wise and now quite benignant smile. Very delicious! After she has done that to her three times she'll get used to it. Then after a silent, what does your son think of it? She abruptly asked. He left England before the will was read, used up by his fatigue and anxiety and hurrying off to the south. He's on his way to the Riviera, and I've not yet heard from him. But it's not likely he'll ever object to anything done by his father. Would you say his own share had been cut down? Only at his wish. I know that he urged his father to do something for the people of America. He's not in the least addicted to looking after Number One. It depends upon whom he regards as Number One, said Madame Merle, and she remained thoughtful a moment. Her eyes bent on the floor. Am I not to see your happy niece? She asked at last as she raised them. You may see her, but you'll not be struck with her being happy. She has looked solemn these three days as a chimabue Madonna, and Mrs. Tuchett rang for a servant. Isabelle came in shortly after the footman had been sent to call her, and Madame Merle thought as she appeared that Mrs. Tuchett's comparison had its force. The girl was pale and grave, in effect not mitigated by her deeper mourning, but the smile of her brightest moments came into her face as she saw Madame Merle, who went forward, laid a hand upon our heroine's shoulder, and, after looking at her a moment, kissed her as if she were returning the kiss she had received from her at Garden Court. This was the only allusion the visitor, in her great good taste, made for the present to her young friend's inheritance. Mrs. Tuchett had no purpose of awaiting in London the sale of her house. After selecting from among its furniture the objects she wished to transport to her other abode, she left the rest of its contents to be disposed of by the auctioneer and took her departure for the Continent. She was, of course, accompanied on this journey by her niece, who now had plenty of leisure to measure and weigh and otherwise handle the windfall of which Madame Merle had covertly congratulated her. Isabelle thought very often of the fact of her a session of means, looking at it in a dozen different lights, but we shall not now attempt to follow her train of thought or to explain exactly why her new consciousness was at first oppressive. This failure to raise to immediate joy was indeed but brief. The girl presently made up her mind that to be rich was a virtue because it was to be able to do. And that to do could only be sweet.  To be weak was, for a delicate young person, rather graceful, but, after all, as Isabelle said to herself, there was a larger grace than that. Just now it is true, there was not much to do, once she had sent off a check to Lily and another to poor Edith, but she was thankful for the quiet months which her morning robes and her aunt's fresh widowhood compelled them to spend together. The acquisition of power made her serious. She scrutinised her power with a kind of tender ferocity, but was not eager to exercise it. She began to do so during a stay of some weeks which she eventually made with her aunt in Paris, though in ways that will inevitably present themselves as trivial. They were the ways most naturally imposed in a city in which the shops are the admiration of the world and that were prescribed unreservedly by the guidance of Mrs. Touchett, who took a rigidly practical view of the transformation of her niece from a poor girl to a rich woman.  I mean, to play it well, she said to Isabelle once for all, and she added that the girl's first duty was to have everything handsome. You don't know how to take care of your things, but you must learn, she went on. This was Isabelle's second duty. Isabelle submitted, but for the present her imagination was not kindled. She longed for opportunities, but these were not the opportunities she meant. Mrs. Touchett barely changed her plans, and having intended before her husband's death to spend a part of the winner in Paris, saw no reason to deprive herself, still less to deprive her companion of this advantage. Though they would live in great retirement, she might still present her niece, informally, to the little circle of her fellow countrymen, dwelling upon the skirts of the Champs-Elysées. With many of these amiable colonists Mrs. Touchett was intimate. She shared their expatriation, their convictions, their pastimes, their anew. Isabelle saw them arrive with a good deal of asuity at her aunt's hotel, and pronounced on them with a trenchancy doubtless to be accounted for by the temporary exaltation of her sense of human duty. She made up her mind that their lives were, though luxurious, inane, and incurred some disfavor by expressing this view on bright Sunday afternoons, when the American absentees were engaged in calling on each other. Though her listeners passed for people kept exemplarily genial by their cooks and dressmakers, two or three of them thought her cleverness, which was generally admitted, inferior to that of the new theatrical pieces. You all live here this way, but what does it lead to? she was pleased to ask. It doesn't seem to lead to anything, and I should think you'd get very tired of it. Mrs. Touchett thought the question worthy of Henrietta Stackpole. The two ladies had found Henrietta in Paris, and Isabelle constantly saw her, so that Mrs. Touchett had some reason for saying to herself that if her niece were not clever enough to originate almost anything, she might be suspected of having borrowed that style of remark from her journalistic friend. The first occasion on which Isabelle had spoken was that of a visit paid by the two ladies to Mrs. Loose, an old friend of Mrs. Touchett, and the only person in Paris Mrs. Loose had been living in Paris since the days of Louis Philippe. She used to say jacosely that she was one of the generation of 1830, a joke of which the point was not always taken. When it failed Mrs. Loose used to explain, oh yes, I'm one of the romantics. Her French had never become quite perfect. She was always at home on Sunday afternoons and surrounded by sympathetic compatriots, usually the same. In fact she was at home at all times, and reproduced with wondrous truth in her well-cushioned little corner of the brilliant city, the domestic tone of her native Baltimore. This reduced Mr. Loose, her worthy husband, a tall, lean, grizzled, well-brushed gentleman, who wore a gold eyeglass and carried his hat a little too much on the back of his head, to mere platonic praise of the distractions of Paris. They were his great word, since she would never have guessed from what cares he escaped to them. One of them was that he went every day to the American bankers, where he found a post-office that was almost associable and colloquial and institution as in an American country town. He passed an hour in fine weather in a chair in the Champs Elysees, and he dined uncommonly well at his own table, seated above a waxed floor which it was Mrs. Loose's happiness to believe had a finer polish than any other in the French capital. Occasionally he dined with a friend or two at the Café Anglès, where his talent for ordering a dinner was a source of felicity to his companions and an object of admiration even to the head waiter of the establishment. These were his only known pastimes, but they had beguiled his hours for upwards of half a century, and they doubtless justified his frequent declaration that there was no place like Paris. In no other place, on these terms, could Mr. Loose flatter himself that he was enjoying life. There was nothing like Paris, but it must be confessed that Mr. Loose thought less highly of the scene of his dissipations than earlier days. In the list of his resources his political reflection should not be omitted, for they were doubtless the animating principle of many hours that superficially seemed vacant. Like many of his fellow colonists Mr. Loose was a high or rather a deep, conservative, and gave no countenance to the government lately established in France. He had no faith in its duration and would assure you from year to year that its end was close at hand. They want to be kept down, sir, to be kept down, nothing but the strong hand the iron heel will do for them, he would frequently say of the French people, and his ideal of a fine showy clever rule was that of the superseded empire. Paris is much less attractive than in the days of the emperor. He knew how to make a city pleasant. Mr. Loose had often remarked to Mrs. Touchett, who was quite of his own way of thinking, and wished to know what one had crossed that odious Atlantic for but to get away from republics. Why, madame, sitting in the Champs-les-Dées, opposite to the palace of industry, I've seen the court carriages from the Tuileries pass up and down as many as seven times a day. I remember one occasion when they went as high as nine. What do you see now? It's no use talking. The style's all gone. Napoleon knew what the French people want, and there'll be a dark cloud of her Paris, our Paris, till they get the empire back again. Among Mrs. Loose's visitors on Sunday afternoons was a young man with whom Isabelle had had a good deal of conversation and whom she found full of valuable knowledge. Mr. Edward Rosier, Ned Rosier, as he was called, was native to New York and had been brought up in Paris, living there under the eye of his father, who, as it happened, had been an early and intimate friend of the late Mr. Archer. Edward Rosier remembered Isabelle as a little girl. It had been his father who came to the rescue of the small archers. At the inn at Neufchallet, he was travelling that way, with the boy, and had stopped at the hotel by chance.  Isabelle took a walk with the pair beside the lake and thought little Edward as pretty as an angel, a comparison by no means conventional in her mind, for she had a very definite conception of a type of features which she supposed to be angelic and which her new friend perfectly illustrated. A small pink face surmounted by a blue velvet bonnet and set off by a stiff embroidered collar had become the countenance of her childish dreams, and she had firmly believed, for some time afterwards, that the heavenly host conversed among themselves in a queer little dialect of French English, expressing the properest sentiments, as when Edward told her that he was defended by his bond to go near the edge of the lake and that one must always obey to one's bond. Ned Rosier's English had improved, at least it exhibited in a less degree the French variation. His father was dead and his bond dismissed, but the young man still conformed to the spirit of their teaching. He never went to the edge of the lake. There was still something agreeable to the nostrils about him and something not offensive to nobler organs. He was a very gentle and gracious youth, with what are called cultivated taste, an acquaintance with old China, with good wine, with the bindings of books, with the almanac da gotha, with the best shops, the best hotels, the hours of railway trains. He could order a dinner almost as well as Mr. Loose. It was probable that as his experience accumulated, he would be a worthy successor to that gentleman, whose rather grim politics he also advocated in a soft and innocent voice. He had some charming rooms in Paris decorated with old Spanish altar lace, the envy of his female friends, who declared that his chimney piece was better draped than the high shoulders of many a duchess. He usually, however, spent a part of every winner at Paul, and had once passed a couple of months in the United States. He took a great interest in Isabel and remembered perfectly the walk at Nouve Chalet when she would persist in going so near the edge. He seemed to recognize this same tendency in this subversive inquiry that I quoted a moment ago, and set himself to answer our heroine's question with greater urbanity than it perhaps deserved. What does it lead to, Miss Archer? Why Paris leads to everywhere. You can't go anywhere unless you come here first. Everyone that comes to Europe has got to pass through. You don't mean it in that sense so much. You mean what good it does you? Well, how can you penetrate fertility? How can you tell what lies ahead? If it's a pleasant road, I don't care where it leads. I like the road, Miss Archer. I like the dear old asphalt. You can't get tired of it. You can't if you try.  There's always something new and fresh. Take the hotel's roux. Now they sometimes have three or four sales a week. Where can you get such things as you can hear? In spite of all they say, I maintain they're cheaper, too. If you know the right places. I know plenty of places, but I keep them to myself. I'll tell you, if you like, as a particular favour. Only you mustn't tell anyone else.  I want you to promise me that. As a general thing, avoid the boulevards. There's very little to be done on the boulevards. Speaking conscientiously, sans blague. I don't believe anyone knows Paris better than I.  Je ne vous dis que ça. There has been a great deal of talk about London of late. It's the fashion to cry up London. But there's nothing in it. You can't do anything in London. No Louis Quince. Nothing of the First Empire. Nothing but their eternal Queen Anne. It's good for one's bedroom, Queen Anne, for one's washing room. But it isn't proper for the salon. Do I spend my life at the auctioneers? Mr. Rosier pursued and answered to another question of Isabelle's. Oh no. I haven't the means. I wish I had. You think I'm a mere trifler? I can tell by the expression of your face. You've got a wonderfully expressive face. I hope you don't mind my saying that. I mean it as a kind of warning.  And so do I. So long as you leave it vague. But when you come to the point, you see you have to stop. I can't go home and be a shopkeeper. You think I'm very well fitted? Ah, Miss Archer. You overrate me. I can buy very well, but I can't sell. You should see, when I sometimes try to get rid of my things, it takes much more ability to make other people buy than to buy yourself. When I think how clever they must be, the people who make me buy. Ah, no. I couldn't be a shopkeeper. I can't be a doctor. It's a repulsive business. I can't be a clergyman. I haven't got convictions. And then I can't pronounce the names right in the Bible. They're very difficult, in the Old Testament particularly. I can't be a lawyer. I don't understand. How do you call it the American Procedure? Is there anything else? There's nothing for a gentleman in America. I should like to be a diplomatist. But American diplomacy? That's not for a gentleman either. I'm sure if you had seen the last Henrietta Stackpole, who was often with her friend, when Mr. Rossier, coming to pay his compliments late in the afternoon, expressed himself after the fashion I have sketched. Usually interrupted the young man at this point and read him a lecture on the duties of the American citizen. She thought him most unnatural. He was worse than poor Ralph Touchett. Henrietta, however, was at this time more than ever addicted to fine criticism. For her conscience had been freshly alarmed as regards Isabelle. She had not congratulated this young lady on her augmentations and begged to be excused from doing so. If Mr. Touchett had consulted me about leaving you the money, she frankly asserted, I'd have said to him, never. I see, Isabelle had answered. You think it will prove a curse in disguise. Perhaps it will. Leave it to someone you care less for. That's what I should have said. To yourself, for instance? Isabelle suggested decosely. And then, do you really believe it will ruin me? She asked in quite another tone. I hope it won't ruin you, but it will certainly confirm your dangerous tendencies. Do you mean the love of luxury? Of extravagance? No, no, said Henrietta. I mean your exposure on the moral side. I approve of luxury. I think we ought to be as elegant as possible. Look at the luxury of our western cities. I've seen nothing over here to compare with it. I hope you'll never become grossly sensual, but I am not afraid of that. The peril for you is that you live too much in the world of your own dreams. You're not enough in contact with reality, with the toiling, striving, suffering. I may even say sinning, world that surrounds you. You're too fastidious. You've too many graceful illusions. Your newly acquired thousands will shut you up more and more to the society of a few selfish and heartless people who will be interested in keeping them. Isabelle's eyes expanded as she gazed at this lurid scene. What are my illusions? she asked. I try so hard to not have any. Well, said Henrietta, you think you can lead a romantic life, that you can live by pleasing yourself and pleasing others. You'll find you're mistaken. Whatever life you lead, you must put your soul in it. To make any sort of success of it, and from the moment you do that, it ceases to be romance. I assure you, it becomes grim reality. And you can't always please yourself. You must sometimes please other people. That, I admit, you're very ready to do, but there's another thing that's still more important. You must often displease others. You must always be ready for that. You must never shrink from it. That doesn't suit you at all. You're too fond of admiration. You like to be thought well of. You think we can escape disagreeable duties by taking romantic views. That's your great illusion, my dear. But we can't. You must be prepared on many occasions in life to please no one at all, not even yourself. Isabel shook her head sadly. She looked troubled and frightened. This, for you, Henrietta, she said, must be one of those occasions. It was certainly true that Ms. Stackpole, during her visit to Paris, which had been professionally more remunative than her English sojourn, had not been living in the world of dreams. Mr. Bantling, who had now returned to England, was her companion for the first four weeks of her stay, and about Ms. Bantling, there was nothing dreamy. Isabel learned from her friend that the two had had a life of great personal intimacy, and that this had been a peculiar advantage to Henrietta, owing to the gentleman's remarkable knowledge of Paris. He had explained everything, shown her everything, then her constant guide and interpreter. They had breakfast together, dined together, gone to the theatre together, sucked together, really in a manner quite lived together. He was a true friend. Henrietta, more than once, assured our heroine, and she had never supposed that she could like any Englishman so well. Isabel could not have told you why, but she found something that ministered to Merth in the alliance, the correspondent of the interviewer had struck with Lady Pencil's brother. Her amusement, moreover, subsisted in the face of the fact that she thought it a credit to each of them. Isabel couldn't rid herself of a suspicion that they were playing somehow at cross purposes, that the simplicity of each had been entrapped. But this simplicity was on either side nonetheless honourable. It was as graceful on Henrietta's part to believe that Mr. Bantling took an interest in the diffusions of lively journalism and in consolidating the position of Lady Correspondence, as it was on the part of his companion to suppose that the cause of the interviewer, a periodical of which he never formed a very definitive conception, was, if subtly analysed, a task to which Mr. Bantling felt himself quite equal, but the cause of Miss Stackpole's need of demonstrative affection, each of these groping celibates supplied at any rate at one of which the other was impatiently conscious. Mr. Bantling, who was of rather a slow and a discursive habit, relished a prompt, keen, positive woman who charmed him by the influence of a shining, challenging eye and a kind of band-box freshness and who kindled a perception of raciness in a mind to which the usual fare of life seemed unsalted. Henrietta, on the other hand, enjoyed the society of a gentleman who appeared somehow in his way, made by expensive, roundabout, almost quaint processes for her use, and whose leisured state, though generally indefensible, was a decided boon to a breathless mate, and who was furnished with an easy, traditional, though by no means exhaustive, answer to almost any social or practical question that could come up. She often found Mr. Bantling's answers very convenient, and in the press of catching the American Post, would largely and showily address them to publicity. It was to be feared that she was indeed drifting towards those abysses of sophistication as to which Isabelle, wishing for a good-humored retort, had warned her. There might be danger in store for Isabelle, but it was scarcely to be hoped that Miss Stackpole, on her side, would find permanent rest in any adoption of the views of a class pledged to all the old abuses. Isabelle continued to warn her, good-humoredly, Lady Pencil's, obliging brother, was sometimes on our heroine's lips an object of irreverent and fastidious illusion. Nothing, however, could exceed Henrietta's amyability on this point. She used to abound in the sense of Isabelle's irony and to enumerate with elation the hours she had spent with this perfect man of the world, a term that had ceased to make with her, as previously, for a probrium, then a few moments later. She would forget that they had been talking jacosely and would mention with impulsive earnestness some expeditions she had enjoyed in his company. She would say, oh, I know all about Versailles. I went there with Mr. Bantling. I was bound to see it thoroughly. I warned him, when we went out there, that I was thorough, so we spent three days at the hotel and wandered all over the place. It was lovely weather, a kind of Indian summer. Only not so good. We just lived in that park. Oh, yes, you can't tell me anything about Versailles. Henrietta appeared to have made arrangements to meet her gallant friend during the spring in Italy. End of Chapter 20 Chapter 21 of The Portrait of a Lady, Volume 1 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Dawn Murphy The Portrait of a Lady, Volume 1, by Henry James, Chapter 21 Mrs. Touchett, before arriving in Paris, had fixed the day for her departure and by the middle of February had begun to travel southward.  Isabelle went with her aunt as a matter of course, though Mrs. Touchett, with homely, customary logic, had laid before her a pair of alternatives. Now, of course, you're completely your own mistress and are as free as the bird on the bow. I don't mean you are not so before, but you're at present on a different footing. Property erects a kind of barrier. You can do a great many things, if you're rich, which would be severely criticized if you were poor. You can go and come. You can travel alone. You can have your own establishment.  You don't think you'd like that? Of course. You can do as you please. I only want you to understand how much you are at your liberty. You might take Miss Stackpole as your dame d'accompagnée. She'd keep people off very well, I think. I think, however, that it's a great deal better you should remain with me, in spite of there being no obligation. It's better for several reasons, quite apart from your liking it. I shouldn't think you'd like it, but I recommend you to make the sacrifice. Of course, whatever novelty there may have been at first in my society has quite passed away, and you see me as I am a dull, obstinate, narrow-minded old woman. I don't think you're at all dull, Isabel replied to this, but you do think I'm obstinate and narrow-minded? I told you so, said Mrs. Touchett, with much elation at being justified. Isabel remained for the present with her aunt, because, in spite of eccentric impulses, she had a great regard for what was usually deemed decent, and a young gentlewoman, without visible relations, had always struck her as a flower without foliage. It was true that Mrs. Touchett's conversation had never again appeared so brilliant as the first afternoon in Albany, when she sat in her damp waterproof and sketched the opportunities that Europe would offer to a young person of taste. This, however, was in a great measure the girl's own fault. She had not a glimpse of her aunt's experience, and her imagination constantly anticipated the judgments and emotions of a woman who had very little of the same faculty. Apart from this, Mrs. Touchett had a great merit. She was as honest as a pair of compasses. There was a comfort in her stiffness and firmness. You knew exactly where to find her, and were never liable to chance encounters and concussions. On her own ground she was perfectly present, but was never over inquisitive as regards the territory of her neighbor. Isabel came at last to have a kind of undremonstrable pity for her. There seemed something so dreary in the condition of a person whose nature had, as it were, so little surface, offered so limited a face to the accretions of human contact. Nothing tender, nothing sympathetic, had ever had a chance to fasten upon it, no wind-sown blossom, no familiar softening moss. Her offered, her passive extent, in other words, was about that of a knife edge. Isabel had reason to believe, nonetheless, that as she advanced in life she made more of those concessions to the sense of something obscurely distinct from convenience, more of them than she independently exacted. She was learning to sacrifice consistency to considerations of that inferior order for which the excuse must be found in the particular case. It was not to the credit of her absolute rectitude that she should have gone the longest way round to Florence in order to spend a few weeks with her invalid son. Since in former years it had been one of her most definitive convictions that when Ralph wished to see her he was at liberty to remember that Palazzo Crescentini contained a large apartment known as the Quarter of the Signorino. I want to ask you something, Isabel said to this young man, the day after her arrival at San Remo, something I've thought more than once of asking you by letter, but that I've hesitated on the whole to write about. Face to face, nevertheless, my question seems easy enough. Did you know your father intended to leave me so much money? Ralph stretched his legs a little farther than usual and gazed a little more fixedly at the Mediterranean. What does it matter, my dear Isabel, whether I knew? My father was very obstinate. So, said the girl, you did know. Yes, he told me, we even talked it over a little. What did he do it for? asked Isabel abruptly. Why, as a kind of compliment. A compliment on what? On your so beautifully existing. He liked me too much, she presently declared. That's a way we all have. If I believe that, I should be very unhappy. Fortunately, I don't believe it. I want to be treated with justice. I want nothing but that. Very good. But you must remember that justice, to a lovely being, is after all a florid sort of sentiment. I'm not a lovely being. How can you say that, at the very moment when I'm asking such odious questions? I must seem to you delicate. You seem to me troubled, said Ralph. I am troubled. About what? For a moment she answered nothing, then she broke out. Do you think it's good for me suddenly to be made so rich? Henrietta doesn't. Oh, hang Henrietta, said Ralph coarsely. If you ask me, I'm delighted at it. Is that why your father did it? For your amusement? I differ with Miss Stackpole. Ralph went on more gravely. I think it very good for you to have means. Isabelle looked at him with serious eyes. I wonder whether you know what's good for me, or whether you care. If I know, depend upon it. I care. Shall I tell you what it is? Not to torment yourself. Not to torment you, I suppose you mean. You can't do that. I'm proof. Take things more easily. Don't ask yourself so much whether this or that is good for you. Don't question your conscience so much. It will get out of tune like a strummed piano. Keep it for great occasions.  It's like trying to pull open a tight, tender, young rose. Live as you like best, and your character will take care of itself. Most things are good for you. The exceptions are very rare, and a comfortable income's not one of them. Ralph paused, smiling. Isabelle had listened quickly. You've too much power of thought. Above all, too much conscience, Ralph added. It's out of all reason the number of things you think wrong. Put back your watch. Diet your fever. Spread your wings. Raise above the ground. It's never wrong to do that. She had listened eagerly, as I say, and it was her nature to understand quickly. I wonder if you appreciate what you say. If you do, you take a great responsibility. You frighten me a little, but I think I'm right, said Ralph, persisting in cheer. All the same what you say is very true, Isabelle pursued. You could say nothing more true. I'm absorbed in myself. I look at life too much as a doctor's prescription. Why, indeed, should we perpetually be thinking whether things are good for us, as if we were patients lying in a hospital? Why should I be so afraid of not doing right, as if it mattered to the world whether I do right or wrong?  You take the wind out of my sails. She looked at him as if she had not heard him, though she was following out the train of reflection which he himself had kindled. I try to care more about the world than about myself, but I always come back to myself. It's because I'm afraid. She stopped. Her voice had trembled a little. Yes, I'm afraid. I can't tell you. A large fortune means freedom, and I'm afraid of that. It's such a fine thing, and one should make such a good use of it. If one shouldn't, one would be ashamed. And one must keep thinking. It's a constant effort. I'm not sure it's not a greater happiness to be powerless. For weak people, I've no doubt it's a greater happiness. For weak people, the effort not to be contemptible must be great. And how do you know I'm not weak? Isabel asked. Ah, Ralph answered with a flush that the girl noticed. If you are, I'm awfully sold. The charm of the Mediterranean coast only deepened for our heroine on acquaintance, for it was the threshold of Italy, the gate of admiration. Italy, as yet imperfectly seen and felt, stretched before her as a land of promise, a land in which a love of the beautiful might be comforted by endless knowledge. Whenever she strolled upon the shore with her cousin, and she was the companion of his daily walk, she looked across the sea with longing eyes, to where she knew that Genoa lay. She was glad to pause, however, on the edge of this larger adventure. There was such a thrill even in the preliminary hovering. It affected her, moreover, as a peaceful interlude, as a hush of the drum and fife in a career which she had little warrant as yet for regarding as agitated. But which nevertheless she was constantly picturing to herself by the light of her hopes, her fears, her fancies, her ambitions, her predilections, and which reflected these subjective accidents in a manner sufficiently dramatic. Madame Merle had predicted to Mrs. Touchett that after their young friend had put her hand into her pocket half a dozen times, she would be reconciled to the idea that it had been filled by a munificent uncle, and the event justified is ahead so often justified before. The Lady's Perspicacity Ralph Touchett had praised his cousin for being morally inflammable, that is, for being quick to take a hint that was meant as good advice. His advice had perhaps helped the matter. She had at any rate before leaving San Remo grown used to feeling rich. The consciousness, in question, found a proper place in rather a dense little group of ideas that she had about herself, and often it was by no means the least agreeable. It took perpetually, for granted, a thousand good intentions. She lost herself in a maze of visions, the fine things to be done by a rich, independent, generous girl who took a large human view of occasions and obligations were sublime in the mass. Her fortune, therefore, became to her mind a part of her better self. It gave her importance, gave her even, to her own imagination, a certain ideal beauty. What it did for her, in the imagination of others, is another affair, and on this point we must also touch in time. The visions I have just spoken of were mixed with other debates. Isabelle liked better to think of the future than of the past, but at times as she listened to the murmur of the Mediterranean waves, her glance took a backward flight. It rested upon two figures, which in spite of increasing distance were still, sufficiently, salient. They were recognisable without difficulty of those of Casper Goodwood and Lord Warburton. It was strange how quickly these images of energy had fallen into the background of our young lady's life. It was in her disposition at all times to lose faith in the reality of absent things. She could summon back her faith, in case of need, with an effort, but the effort was often painful, even when the reality had been pleasant. The past was apt to look dead, and its revival rather to show the vivid light of a judgment day. The girl, moreover, was not prone to take for granted that she herself lived in the mind of others. She had not that fatuity to believe she left indelible traces. She was capable of being wounded by the discovery that she had been forgotten, but of all liberties the one she herself found sweetest was the liberty to forget. She had not given her last shilling, sentimentally speaking, either to Casper Goodwood or Lord Warburton, and yet couldn't but feel them appreciably in debt to her. She had, of course, reminded herself that she was to hear from Mr. Goodwood again, but this was not to be for another year and a half, and in that time a great many things might happen. She had indeed failed to say to herself that her American suitor might find some other girl more comfortable to woo. Because, though it was certain many other girls would prove so, she had not the smallest belief that this merit would attract him. But she reflected that she herself might know the humiliation of change, might really, for that matter, come to the end of the things that were not Casper, even though there appeared so many of them, and find rest in those very elements of his presence which struck her now as impediments to the finer respiration. It was conceivable that these impediments should someday prove a sort of blessing in disguise, a clear and quiet harbor enclosed by a brave granite breakwater. But that day could only come in its order, and she couldn't wait for it with folded hands. That Lord Warburton, should continue to cherish her image, seem to her more than a noble humility, or an enlightened pride ought to wish to reckon with. She had so definitely undertaken to preserve no record of what had passed between them, that a corresponding effort on his own part would be eminently just. This was not, as it may seem, merely a theory tinged with sarcasm. Isabelle candidly believed that his lordship would, in the usual phrase, get over his disappointment. He had been deeply affected, this she believed, and she was still capable of deriving pleasure from the belief. But it was absurd that a man both so intelligent and so honourably dealt with should cultivate a scar out of proportion to any wound. Englishmen liked moreover to be comfortable, said Isabelle, and there could be little comfort for Lord Warburton in the long run in brooding over a self-sufficient American girl who had been but a casual acquaintance. She flattered herself that, should she hear from one day to another that he had married some young woman of his own country who had done more to deserve him. She should receive the news without a pang even of surprise. It would have proved that he believed she was firm, which was what she wished to seem to him. That alone was grateful to her pride. CHAPTER XXII On one of the first days of May, some six months after old Mr. Touche's death, a small group that might have been described by a painter as composing well was gathered in one of the many rooms of an ancient villa, crowning an olive muffled hill outside of the Roman gate of Florence. The villa was a long, rather blank-looking structure, with the far projecting roof which Tuscany loves, and which, on the hills that encircle Florence, when considered from a distance, makes so harmonious a rectangle with the straight, dark, definite cypresses that usually rise in groups of three or four beside it. The house had a front upon a little grassy, empty rural piazza which occupied a part of the hilltop, and this front pierced with a few windows in irregular relations and furnished with a stone bench lengthily adjusted to the base of the structure and useful as a lounging place to one or two persons, wearing more or less of that air of undervalued merit which in Italy, for some reason or other, always gracefully invests anyone who confidently assumes a perfectly passive attitude. This antique, solid weather-worn yet imposing front had a somewhat incommunicative character. It was the mask, not the face of the house. It had heavy lids, but no eyes. The house in reality looked another way, looked off behind, into splendid openness, and the range of the afternoon light. In that quarter the villa overhung the slope of its hill and the long valley of the Arno, easy with Italian color. It had a narrow garden in the manner of a terrace, productive chiefly of tangles of wild roses and other old stone benches, mossy and sun-warmed. The parapet of the terrace was just the height to lean upon, and beneath it the ground declined into the vagueness of olive crops and vineyards. It is not, however, with the outside of the place that we are concerned. On this bright morning of ripened spring its tenants had reason to prefer the shady side of the wall. The windows of the ground floor, as you saw them from the piazza, were in their noble proportions extremely architectural, but their functions seemed less to offer communication with the world than to defy the world to look in. They were massively cross-barred and placed at such a height that curiosity, even on tiptoe, expired before it reached them. In an apartment lighted by a row of three of these jealous apertures, one of the several distinct departments into which the villa was divided, and which were mainly occupied by foreigners of random race long resident in Florence, a gentleman was seated in company with a young girl and two good sisters from a religious house. The room was, however, less somber than our indications may have represented, for it had a wide high door which now stood open into the tangled garden behind, and the tall iron lattices admitted on occasion more than enough of the Italian sunshine. It was, moreover, a seat of ease, indeed of luxury, telling of arrangements subtly studied and refinements frankly proclaimed, and containing a variety of those faded hangings of damask and tapestry, those chests and cabinets of carved and time-polished oak, those angular specimens of pictorial art, in frames as pedantically primitive, those perverse-looking relics of medieval brass and pottery, of which Italy has long been the not-quite-exhausted storehouse. These things kept terms with articles of modern furniture in which large allowance had been made for a lounging generation. It was to be noticed that all the chairs were deep and well-padded, and that much space was occupied by a writing-table of which the ingenious perfection bore the stamp of London and the nineteenth century. There were books in profusion and magazines and newspapers, and a few small odd, elaborate pictures, chiefly in water-colour. One of these productions stood on a drawing-room easel before which, at the moment we begin to be concerned with her, the young girl I have mentioned had placed herself. She was looking at the picture in silence. Silence, absolute silence, had not fallen upon her companions, but their talk had an appearance of embarrassed continuity. The two good sisters had not settled themselves in their respective chairs. Their attitude expressed a final reserve, and their faces showed the glaze of prudence. They were plain, ample, mild-featured women, with a kind of business-like modesty, to which the impersonal aspect of their stiffen linen and of the surge that draped them as if nailed on frames gave an advantage. One of them, a person of a certain age, in spectacles, with a fresh complexion and a full cheek, had a more discriminating manner than her colleague, as well as the responsibility of their errand which apparently related to the young girl. This object of interest wore her hat, an ornament of extreme simplicity, and not at variance with her plain muslin gown too short for her years, though it must already have been let out. The gentleman who might have been supposed to be entertaining the two nuns was perhaps conscious of the difficulties of his function. It being in its way as arduous to converse with the very meek as with the very mighty.  He was a man of forty, with a high but well-shaped head, on which the hair, still dense, but prematurely grizzled, had been cropped close. He had a fine, narrow, extremely mottled and composed face, of which the only fault was just this effect of its running a trifle too much to points, an appearance to which the shape of the beard contributed not a little. This beard cut in the manner of the portraits of the sixteenth century, and surmounted by a fair mustache, of which the ends had a romantic upward flourish, gave its wearer a foreign, traditionary look, and suggested that he was a gentleman who studied style. His conscious, curious eyes, however, eyes that once vague and penetrating, intelligent and hard, expressive of the observer as well as of the dreamer, would have assured you that he studied it only within well-chosen limits, and that insofar as he sought it he found it. You would have been much at a loss to determine his original climb and country. He had none of the superficial signs that usually rendered the answer to this question an insipidly easy one. If he had English blood in his veins, it had probably received some French or Italian co-mixture. But he suggested, fine coin as he was, no stamp nor emblem of the common mintage that provides for general circulation. He was the elegant, complicated metal struck off for a special occasion. He had a light, lean, rather languid-looking figure, and was apparently neither tall nor short. He was dressed as a man dressed who takes little other trouble about it than to have no vulgar things. Well, my dear, what do you think of it? He asked of the young girl. He used the Italian tongue and used it with perfect ease. But this would not have convinced you he was Italian.  It's very pretty, Papa. Did you make it yourself? Certainly I made it. Don't you think I'm clever? Yes, Papa, very clever. I also have learned to make pictures. And she turned round and showed a small, fair face, painted with a fixed and intensely sweet smile. You should have brought me a specimen of your powers. I've brought a great many there in my trunk. She draws very, very carefully, the elder nun remarked, speaking in French. I'm glad to hear it. Is it you who have instructed her? Happily no, said the good sister blushing little, Sine Palma Parti. I teach nothing. I leave that to those who are wiser. We've an excellent drawing master. Mr.—Mr.—what's his name? She asked of her companion. Her companion looked about at the carpet. It's a German name, she said in Italian, as if it needed to be translated. Yes, the other went on. He's a German, and we've had him many years. The young girl, who was not heeding the conversation, had wandered away to the open door of the large room, and stood looking into the garden. And you, my sister, are French, said the gentleman. Yes, sir, the visitor gently replied. I speak to the pupils in my own tongue. I know no other. But we have sisters of other countries—English, German, Irish—they all speak their proper language. The gentleman gave a smile. Has my daughter been under the care of one of the Irish ladies? And then, as he saw that his visitors suspected a joke, though failing to understand it, you're very complete, he instantly added. Oh yes, we're complete. We've everything, and everything's of the best. We have gymnastics, the Italian sister ventured to remark, but not dangerous. I hope not. Is that your branch? A question which provoked much candid hilarity on the part of the two ladies, on the subsidence of which their entertainer, glancing at his daughter, remarked that she had grown. Yes, but I think she has finished. She'll remain, not big, said the French sister. I'm not sorry. I prefer women like books, very good, and not too long. But I know, the gentleman said, no particular reason why my child should be short. The nun gave a temperate shrug as if to intimate that such things might be beyond our knowledge. She's in very good health, that's the best thing. Yes, she looks sound. And the young girl's father watched her a moment. What do you see in the garden? he asked in French. I see many flowers, she replied in a sweet, small voice, and with an accent as good as his own. Yes, but not many good ones. However, such as they are, go out and gather some for Sedam.  May I truly? Ah, when I tell you, said her father. The girl glanced at the elder of the nuns. May I truly, my mare? Obey me, sure, your father, my child, said the sister, blushing again. The child, satisfied with this authorization, descended from the threshold and was presently lost to sight. You don't spoil them, said her father gaily. For everything they must ask leave, that's our system. Leave is freely granted, but they must ask it. Oh, I don't quarrel with your system. I've no doubt it's excellent. I sent you my daughter to see what you'd make of her. I had faith. One must have faith. The sister blandly rejoined, gazing through her spectacles. Well, has my faith been rewarded? What have you made of her? The sister dropped her eyes a moment. A good Christian mature. Her host dropped his eyes as well, but it was probable that the movement had in each case a different spring. Yes, and what else? He watched the lady from the convent, probably thinking she would say that a good Christian was everything, but for all her simplicity she was not so crude as that.  She seems to me very gentile, said the father. She's really pretty. She's perfect. She has no faults. She never had any as a child, and I'm glad you have given her none. We love her too much, said the speckled sister with dignity. And as for faults, how can we give what we have not? Les couvons non pas comme les mains, monsieur. She's our daughter, as you may say. We've had her since she was so small. Of all those we shall lose this year. She's the one we shall miss most. The younger woman murmured deferentially. Ah, yes, we shall talk long of her, said the other. We shall hold her up to the new ones. And at this the good sister appeared to find her spectacles dim, while her companion, after fumbling a moment, presently drew forth a pocket handkerchief of durable texture. It's not certain you'll lose her. Nothing settled yet. Their hosts rejoined quickly. Not as if to anticipate their tears, but in the tone of a man saying what was most agreeable to himself. We should be very happy to believe that. Fifteen is very young to leave us. Oh! exclaimed the gentleman, with more vivacity than he had yet used. It is not I who wish to take her away. I wish you could keep her always. Ah, monsieur, said the elder sister, smiling and getting up. Good as she is, she's made for the world. If all the good people were hidden away in convents, how would the world get on? Our younger companion softly inquired, rising also. This was a question of wider bearing than the good woman apparently supposed, and the lady in spectacles took a harmonizing view by saying comfortably, fortunately there are good people everywhere. If you're going, there will be too less here, our hosts remarked gallantly. For this extravagant sally, his simple visitors had no answer, and they simply looked at each other in decent deprecation, but their confusion was speedily covered by the return of the young girl with two large bunches of roses, one of them all white, the other red. I give you your choice, maman Catherine, said the child. It's only the color that's different, maman Justine.  The two sisters turned to each other, smiling and hesitating, with, which will you take, and know it is for you to choose? I'll take the red, thank you, said Catherine in the spectacles. I'm so red myself, they'll comfort us on the way back to Rome. Ah, they won't last, cried the young girl. I wish I could give you something that would last. You've given us a good memory of yourself, my daughter, that will last. I wish nuns could wear pretty things. I would give you my blue beads, the child went on. And do you go back to Rome tonight, our father inquired? Yes, we take the train again. We've so much to do, laba. Are you not tired? We are never tired. Ah, my sister sometimes, murmured the junior Votores. Not today at any rate. We have rested too well here. Could you have valgar, my fiend? Their host, while they exchanged kisses with his daughter, went forward to open the door through which they were to pass. But as he did so he gave a slight exclamation, and stood looking beyond. The door opened into a vaulted antechamber, as high as a chapel, and paved with red tiles. And into this antechamber a lady had just been admitted by a servant. A lad in shabby livery, who was now ushering her toward the apartment in which our friends were grouped. The gentleman at the door, after dropping his exclamation, remained silent. In silence, too, the lady advanced. He gave her no further audible greeting, and offered her no hand, but stood aside to let her pass into the salon. At the threshold she hesitated. Is there anyone? she asked. Someone you may see. She went in and found herself confronted with the two nuns and their pupil, who was coming forward between them with a hand in the arm of each. At the sight of the new visitor they all paused, and the lady, who had also stopped, stood looking at them. The young girl gave a little soft cry. Ah, madame! Yeah! The visitor had been slightly startled, but her manner the next instant was nonetheless gracious. Yes, it's madame Merrill come to welcome you home. And she held out two hands to the girl, who immediately came up to her, presenting her forehead to be kissed. Madame Merrill saluted this portion of her charming little person, and then stood smiling at the two nuns. They acknowledged her smile with a decent obeisance, but permitted themselves no direct scrutiny of this imposing, brilliant woman, who seemed to bring in with her something of the radiance of the outer world. These ladies have brought my daughter home, and now they return to the convent, the gentleman explained. Ah, you go back to Rome? I've lately come from there. It's very lovely now, said madame Merrill. The good sisters, standing with their hands folded into their sleeves, accepted this statement uncritically, and the master of the house asked his new visitor how long it was since she had left Rome. She came to see me at the convent, said the young girl before the lady addressed, had time to reply. I've been more than once, pansy, madame Merrill declared. Am I not your great friend in Rome? I remember the last time best, said pansy, because you told me I should come away. Did you tell her that? the child's father asked. I hardly remember. I told her what I thought would please her. I've been in Florence a week. I hoped you would come to see me. I should have done so if I had known you were there. 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 particular tone of voice, a tone half lowered and carefully quiet, but as from habit rather than from any definite need. Madame Merrill looked about her, choosing her seat. You're going to the door with these women? Let me, of course, not interrupt the ceremony. Je veux cellieu, madame. 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 their entertainer. We've much faith in her judgment, and she'll help me to decide whether my daughter shall return to you at the end of the holidays. I hope you'll decide in our favour, madame. The sister in spectacles ventured to remark. That's Mr. Osmond's pleasantry. I decide nothing, said madame Merrill, but also as in pleasantry. I believe you have a very good school, but Miss Osmond's friends must remember that she's very naturally meant for the world. That's what I've told Mishir, Sister Catherine answered. It's precisely to fit her for the world, she murmured, glancing at Pansy, who stood at a little distance, attentive to Madame Merrill's elegant apparel. Do you hear that, Pansy? You're very naturally meant for the world, said Pansy's father. The child fixed him an instant with her pure, young eyes. Am I not meant for you, Papa? Papa gave a quick, light laugh. That doesn't prevent it. I'm of the world, Pansy. Kindly permit us to retire, said Sister Catherine. Be good and wise and happy in any case, my daughter. I shall certainly come back and see you, Pansy returned, recommencing her embraces, which were presently interrupted by Madame Merrill. Stay with me, dear child, she said, while your father takes the good ladies to the door. Pansy stared, disappointed, yet not protesting. She was evidently impregnated with the idea of submission, which was due to anyone who took the tone of authority, and she was a passive spectator of the operation of her fate. May I not see Mama Catherine get into the carriage? She nevertheless asked very gently. It would please me better if you'd remain with me, said Madame Merrill, while Mr. Osmond and his companions, who had bowed low again to the other visitor, passed into the antechamber. Oh yes, I'll stay, Pansy answered, and she stood near Madame Merrill, surrendering her little hand which this lady took.  I'm glad they've talked you to obey, said Madame Merrill. That's what good little girls should do. Oh yes, I obey very well, cried Pansy, with soft eagerness, almost with boastfulness, as if she had been speaking of her piano playing. And then she gave a faint, just audible sigh. Madame Merrill, holding her hand, drew it across her own fine palm and looked at it. The gaze was critical, but it found nothing to deprecate. The child's small hand was delicate and fair. I hope they always see that you wear your gloves, she said in a moment. Little girls usually dislike them. I used to dislike them, but I like them now, the child made answer. Very good, I'll make you a present of a dozen. I thank you very much. What colors will they be? Pansy demanded with interest. Madame Merrill meditated. Useful colors. But very pretty. Are you very fond of pretty things? Yes, but— But not too fond, said Pansy, with a trace of asceticism. Well, they wouldn't be too pretty, Madame Merrill returned who the laugh. She took the child's other hand and drew her nearer, after which, looking at her a moment, shall you miss Mother Catherine? She went on. Yes, when I think of her. Then try not to think of her. Perhaps some day, added Madame Merrill, you'll have another mother. I don't think that's necessary, Pansy said, repeating her a little soft, conciliatory sigh. I had more than thirty mothers at the convent. Her father's steps sounded again in the antechamber, and Madame Merrill got up, releasing the child. Mr. Osmond came in and closed the door. Then, without looking at Madame Merrill, 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'd hoped you have come to Rome. I thought it possible you'd have wished yourself to fetch Pansy away. That was a natural supposition, but I'm afraid it's not the first time I've acted in defiance of your calculations. Yes, said Madame Merrill, I think you're 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 pretext for not giving in attention, which may be embarrassing. Presently, however, he had exhausted his pretext. There was nothing left for him to do, 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 Momon Catherine? He asked her abruptly in French. Pansy hesitated a moment, glancing at Madame Merrill. I asked her to stay with me, said this lady, who had seated herself again in another place. Ah, that was better, Osmond conceded, with which he dropped into a chair and sat looking at Madame Merrill, bent forward a little, his elbows on the edge of the arms, and his hands interlocked. She's going to give me some gloves, said Pansy. You needn't tell that to everyone, my dear, Madame Merrill observed. You're very kind to her, said Osmond. She's supposed to have everything she needs. I should think she had had enough of the nuns. If we're going to discuss that matter, she had better go out of the room. Let her stay, said Madame Merrill. We'll talk of something else. If you like, I won't listen, Pansy suggested, with an appearance of candor which imposed conviction. You may listen, charming child, because you won't understand, her father replied. The child sat down deferentially near the open door, within sight of the garden, into which she directed her innocent, wistful eyes, and Mr. Osmond went on, irrelevantly, addressing himself to his other companion. You're looking particularly well. I think I always look the same, said Madame Merrill. You always are the same. You don't vary.  Yes, I think I am. You sometimes change your mind, however. You told me, on your return from England, that you wouldn't leave Rome again for the present. I'm pleased that you remember so well what I say. That was my intention, but I've come to Florence to meet some friends who have lately arrived, and as to whose movements I was at that time uncertain. That reason's characteristic. You're always doing something for your friends. Madame Merrill smiled straight at her host. It's less characteristic than your comment upon it, which is perfectly insincere. I don't, however, make a crime of that, she added, because if you don't believe what you say, there's no reason why you should. I don't ruin myself for my friends. I don't deserve your praise. I care greatly for myself. Exactly. But yourself includes so many other selves, so much of everyone else, and of everything. I never knew a person whose life touched so many other lives. What do you call one's life? asked Madame Merrill. One's appearance, one's movements, one's engagements, one's society.  Madame Merrill looked a moment at Pansy. I wonder if she understands that, she murmured. You see, she can't stay with us. And Pansy's father gave her rather joyless smile. Go into the garden, mignon, and pluck a flower or two for Madame Merrill, he went on in French. That's just what I wanted to do, Pansy exclaimed, rising with promptness and noiselessly departing. Our 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 Merrill, looking up at him with a certain courage. That comes back to what I say. I'm part of your life, I and a thousand others. You're not selfish, I can't admit that. If you were selfish, what should I be? What epithet would probably describe me? You're indolent, for me, that's your worst fault. I'm afraid it's really my best. You don't care, said Madame Merrill 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's not of importance, to me at least, that you didn't go, though I should have been glad to see you. I'm glad you're not in Rome now, which you might be, would probably be if you had gone there a month ago. There's something I should like you to do at present in Florence. Please remember my indolence, said Osmond. I do remember it, but I beg you to forget it. In that way you'll have both the virtue and the reward. This is not a great labour, and it may prove a real interest, how long is it since you made a new acquaintance? I don't think I've made any since I made yours. It's time, then, that you should make another. There's a friend of mine I want you to know. Mr. Osmond, in his walk, had gone back to the open door again, and was looking at his daughter as she moved about in the intense sunshine. What good will it do me? He asked with a sort of genial crudity. Madam Merrill, wait it. It will amuse you. There was nothing crude in this rejoinder. It had been thoroughly well considered. If you say that, you know, I believe it, said Osmond, coming toward her. There are some points in which my confidence in you is complete. I'm perfectly aware, for instance, that you know good society from bad. Society is all bad. Pardon me. That isn't the knowledge I impute to you, a common sort of wisdom. You've gained it in the right way, experimentally. You've compared an immense number of more or less impossible people with each other. Well, I invite you to profit by my knowledge. To profit? Are you very sure that I shall? It's what I hope. It will depend on yourself. If I could only induce you to make an effort. Ah, there you are. I knew something tiresome was coming. What in the world that's likely to turn up here is worth an effort? Madam Merrill flushed as with a wounded intention. Don't be foolish, Osmond. No one knows better than you what is worth an effort. Haven't I seen you in old days? I recognize some things, but there are none of them probable in this poor life. It's the effort that makes them probable, said Madam Merrill. There's something in that. Who then is your friend? The person I came to Florence to see. She's a niece of Mrs. Touche, whom you'll not have forgotten. A niece? The word niece suggests youth and ignorance. I see what you're coming to. Yes, she's young, twenty-three years old. She's a great friend of mine. I met her for the first time in England several months ago, and we struck up a grand alliance. I like her immensely, and I do what I don't do every day. I admire her. You'll do the same. Not if I can help it. Precisely, but you will be able to help it. Is she beautiful, clever, rich, splendid, universally intelligent, and unprecedentedly virtuous? It's only on those conditions that I care to make her acquaintance. You know I asked you some time ago never to speak to me of a creature who shouldn't correspond to that description. I know plenty of dingy people. I don't want to know any more. Miss Archer isn't dingy. She's as bright as the morning. She corresponds to all your description. It's for that I wish you to know her. She fills all your requirements. More or less, of course. No, quite literally. She's beautiful, accomplished, generous, and for an American, well-born. She's also very clever and very amiable, and she has a handsome fortune. Mr.  What do you want to do with her? He asked at last. What do you see? Put her in your way. Isn't she meant for something better than that? I don't pretend to know what people are meant for, said Madame Merrill. I only know what I can do with them. I'm sorry for Miss Archer, Osmond declared. Madame Merrill got up. If that's the beginning of interest in her, I take note of it. The two stood there face to face. She settled her mentee, looking down at it as she did so. You're looking very well, Osmond repeated, still less relevantly than before. You have some idea. You're never so well as when you've got an idea. They're always becoming to you. In the manner and tone of these two persons, on first meeting at any juncture, and especially when they met in the presence of others, was something indirect and circumspect, as if they had approached each other obliquely and addressed each other by implication. The effect of each appeared to be to intensify to an appreciable degree the self-consciousness of the other. Madame Merrill, of course, carried off any embarrassment better than her friend, but even Madame Merrill had not on this occasion the form she would have liked to have, the perfect self-possession she would have wished to wear for her host. The point to be made is, however, that at a certain moment the element between them, whatever it was, always leveled itself and left them more closely face to face than either ever was with anyone else. This was what had happened now. They stood there knowing each other well, and each on the whole willing to accept the satisfaction of knowing as a compensation for the inconvenience, whatever it might be, of being known. I wish very much you were not so heartless. Madame Merrill quietly said, It has always been against you, and it will be against you now. I'm not so heartless as you think. Every now and then something touches me, as for instance you're saying just now that your ambitions are for me. I don't understand it, I don't see how or why they should be, but it touches me all the same. You'll probably understand it even less as time goes on. There are some things you'll never understand. There's no particular need you should. You, after all, are the most remarkable of women, said Osmond. You have more in you than almost anyone. I don't see why you think Mrs. Touche's niece should matter very much to me when—when— But he paused a moment. When I myself have mattered so little? That, of course, is not what I meant to say. When I've known and appreciated such a woman as you. Isabelle Archer's better than I, said Madame Merrill. Her companion gave a laugh. How little you must think of her to say that. Do you suppose I'm capable of jealousy? Please answer me that. With regard to me? No, on the whole I don't. Come and see me, then, two days hence. I'm staying at Mrs. Touche's, Palazzo Cressantini, and the girl will be there. Why didn't you ask me that at first simply, without speaking of the girl, said Osmond? You could have had her there at any rate. Madame Merrill looked at him in the manner of a woman whom no question he could ever put would find unprepared. Do you wish to know why? Because I've spoken of you to her. Osmond frowned and turned away. I'd rather not know that. Then, in a moment, he pointed out the easel supporting the little watercolor drawing. Have you seen what's there, my last? Madame Merrill drew near and considered. Is it the Venetian Alps, one of your last year sketches? Yes, but how you guess everything. She looked a moment longer, then turned away. You know I don't care for your drawings. I know it, yet I'm always surprised by it. They're really so much better than most peoples. That may very well be, but as the only thing you do, well, it's so little. I should have liked you to do so many other things. Those were my ambitions. Yes, you've told me many times. Things that were impossible. Things that were impossible, said Madame Merrill. And then, in quite a different tone. In itself, your little picture's very good. She looked about the room, at the old cabinets, pictures, tapestries, surfaces of faded silk. Your rooms, at least, are perfect. I'm struck with that afresh whenever I come back. I know none better anywhere. You understand this sort of thing, as nobody anywhere does. You've such adorable taste.  You must nevertheless let Miss Archer come and see it. I've told her about it. I don't object to showing my things, when people are not idiots. You do it delightfully, as Ciceroan of your museum you appear to particular advantage. Mr. Osmond, in return for this compliment, simply looked at once colder and more attentive. Did you say she was rich? She has seventy thousand pounds. On a cubien col. There's no doubt whatever about her fortune. I've seen it, as I may say. Satisfactory woman! I mean you. And if I go to see her, shall I see the mother? The mother? She has none, nor father either. The aunt, then, whom did you say, Mrs. Touche? I can easily keep her out of the way. I don't object to her, said Osmond. I rather like Mrs. Touche. She has a sort of old-fashioned character that's passing away, a vivid identity. But that long jack-a-napes the sun, is he about the place? He's there, but he won't trouble you. He's a good deal of a donkey. I think you're mistaken. He's a very clever man. But he's not fond of being about when I'm there, because he doesn't like me. What could be more asinine than that? Did you say she has looks? Osmond went on. Yes, but I won't say it again, lest you should be disappointed in them. Come and make a beginning, that's all I ask of you. A beginning of what? Madame Merrill was silent a little. I want you, of course, to marry her. The beginning of the end? Well, I'll see for myself. Have you told her that? For what do you take me? She's not so coarse a piece of machinery, nor am I. Really? said Osmond after some meditation. I don't understand your ambitions. I think you'll understand this one after you've seen Miss Archer. Suspend your judgment. Madame Merrill, as she spoke, had drawn near the open door of the garden, where she stood a moment looking out. Pansy has really 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've 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 Merrill asked. She's not in a hurry. We'll go and get them. She doesn't like me, the visitor murmured, as she raised her parasol, and they passed into the garden. END OF CHAPTER XXII CHAPTER XXIII OF THE PORTRETE OF ALEDY VOLUME I This is a LibriVoxer recording. All LibriVoxer recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Martina. THE PORTRETE OF ALEDY VOLUME I BY HENRY JAMES CHAPTER XXIII Madame Merrill, who had come to Florence on Mrs. Tachette's arrival at the invitation of this lady, Mrs. Tachette offering her for a month the hospitality of Palazzo Crescentini, the judicious Madame Merrill spoke to Isabella Fresh about Gilbert Osmond, and expressed the hope she might know him. Making, however, no such point of the matter as we have seen her do in recommending the girl herself to Mr. Osmond's attention. The reason of this was perhaps that Isabella offered no resistance whatever to Madame Merrill's proposal. In Italy, as in England, the lady had a multitude of friends, both among the natives of the country, and its heterogeneous visitors. She had mentioned to Isabella most of the people the girl would find it well to meet. Of course, she said, Isabella could know whomever in the white ward she would, and at place Mr. Osmond near the top of the list. He was an old friend of her own. She had known him these dozen years. He was one of the cleverest and most agreeable men, well in Europe simply. He was altogether above the respectable average, quite another affair. He wasn't a professional charmer, far from it, and the effect he produced depended a good deal on the state of his nerves and his spirits. When knocked in the right mode, he could fall as low as anyone, saved only by his looking at such hours rather like a demoralized prince in exile. But if he cared or was interested or rightly challenged, just exactly rightly that to be, then one felt his cleverness and his distinction. Those qualities didn't depend in him, as in so many people, on his not committing or exposing himself. He had his privesties, which indeed, Isabella would find to be the case with all the men really worth knowing, and didn't cause his lie to shine equally for all person. Madame Mel, however, thought she could undertake that for Isabella, he would be brilliant. He was easily bored, too easily, and that people always put him out. But a quick and cultivated girl like Isabella would give him a stimulus, which was too absent from his life. At any rate, he was a person not to miss. One should then attempt to live in Italy without making a friend of Gilbert Osmond, who knew more about the country than anyone except two or three German professors. And if they had more knowledge than he, it was he who had the most perception and taste, being artistic through and through. Isabella remembered that her friend had spoken of him during their plunge at Garden Court, into the dips of talk, and wondered a little what was the nature of the tie being in this superior spirit. She felt that Madame Mel's ties always somehow had histories, and such an impression was part of the interest created by this inordinate woman. As regards a relation with Miss Rosemond, however, she hinted at nothing, but a long, established, calm friendship. Isabelle said she should be happy to know a person who had enjoyed so high a confidence for so many years. You ought to see a great many men, Madame Mel remarked. You ought to see as many as possible, so as to get used to them. Used to them, Isabelle repeated with a solemn stare, which sometimes seemed to proclaim their deficient in the sense of comedy. Why I am not afraid of them, I am used to them as they cook to the bachelor boys. Used to them, I mean, so as to despise them, that's what one comes to it, most of them. You'll pick out for your society the few whom you don't despise. This was a note of cynicism that Madame Mel didn't often allow herself to sound, but Isabelle was not alarmed. For she had never supposed that, as one saw more of the world, the sentiment of respect became the most active of one's emotion. It was excited, nonetheless, by the beautiful city of Florida. Which pleases her, not less than Madame Mel had promised. And if her unassisted perception had not been able to gauge its charms, she had clever companions as priests to the mystery. She was, in a want indeed, of aesthetic illumination. For Ralph found it a joy that renewed his own nearly passion to act as Ciceroone to his eager, young kinswoman. Madame Mel remained at home. She had seen the treasures of Florence again and again, and had always something else to do. But she talked of all the things with remarkable vividness of memory. She recalled the right-hand corner of the large Perugino and the position of the hands of Saint Elizabeth in the picture next to it. She had their opinions as to the character of many famous work of art, differing often from Ralph with great sharpness and defending her interpretation with as much ingenuity as good to humor. Elizabeth listened to the discussion taking place between the two with a sense that she might derive much benefit from them and that they were among the advantages she couldn't have enjoyed, for instance, in Albany. In the clear May mornings before the formal breakfast, this repulsed atmosphere was served at 12 o'clock. She wandered with her cousin through the narrow somber Florentine street, resting a while in the thicker dusk of some historic church or devoted chambers of Sunday's people's convent. She went to the galleries and palaces. She looked at the pictures and statues that he had to bring great names to her and exchanged for a knowledge which was sometimes a limitation, a presentiment which proved usually to have been a blank. She performed all those acts of mental prostration in which, on a first visit to Italy, youth and enthusiasm so freely indulged. She felt her heart beat in the presence of a mortal genius. He knew the sweetness of rising tears in eyes to each faded fresco and darkened meadow grew dim. But the return every day was even pleasanter than the going forth. The return into the wide monumental court of the great house in which Mrs. Tachette, many years before, had established herself and into the high cool rooms where the carbon rafter and the pompous frescoes of the 16th century looked down on the familiar commodities of the age of advertisement. Mrs. Tachette inhabited an historic building in a narrow street whose very name recalled the strife of medieval faction and found compensation for the darkness of her frontage in the modicity of her rent and the brightness of a garden where nature itself looked as a cake as the rugged architecture of the palace and which cleared and scented the rooms in regular use. To live in such a place was, for Isabelle, to hold to her here all day a shell of the sea of the past. This vague, eternal rumor kept her imagination awake. Gilbert Rosemont came to see Madame Mel who presented him to the young lady larking at the other side of the room. Isabelle took on this occasion little part in the talk. She scarcely even smiled when the others turned to her invitingly. She sat there as if she had been at the play and had paid even a large sum for her plays. Mrs. Tachette was not present and these two had it for the effect of brilliancy all the wrong way. They talked of the Florentine, the Roman, the cosmopolite world and might have been distinguished performers figuring for a charity. It all had the rich readiness that would have come from Riausel. Madame Mel appealed to her as if she had been on the stage but she could ignore any length due to spoiling the scene. Though, of course, she thus put dreadfully in the wrong the friend who had told Mr. Rosemont she could be dependent on. It was no matter for once, even if more had been involved she could have made no time to shine. There was something in the visitor that checked her and the other in suspense made it more important she should get an impression of him than that she should produce one herself. Besides, she had little skill in producing an impression which she knew to be expected. Nothing could be happier in general than to see him dazzling but she had a perverse unwillingness to glitter by arrangement. Mr. Rosemont to do him justice had a well-bred air of expecting nothing a quiet ease that covered everything. Even the first show of his own wit this was the more grateful as his face his head was sensitive he was not handsome but he was fine as fine as one of the drawings in the long gallery above the bridge of the Uffizi in this very voice was fine the most strangely that with the clearness it yes somehow wasn't sweet this had had really to do with making her abstain from interference his utterance was the vibration of glass and if she had put out her finger she might have changed the pitch and spoiled the concert yet before he went she had to speak. Madam Mel, he said concerned to come up to my hilltop someday next week and drink tea in my garden it would give me much pleasure if you would come with air he thought rather pretty that's what they call a general view my daughter too would be so glad or rather for she's too young to have strong emotion I should be so glad, so very glad. And Mr. Rosemont posed with a slight air of embarrassment leaving his sentence unfinished I should be so happy if you could know my daughter he went on a moment afterward Isabel replied that she should be delighted to see Miss Osmond and that if Madam Mel would show her the way to the hilltop she should be very grateful upon this assurance the visitor took this leave after which Isabel fully expected her friend who's called her for having been so stupid but to her surprise that lady and it never fell into the mere matter, of course say to her in a few moments you were charming my dear you were just as one who'd have wished you you were never disappointing a rebuck might possibly have been irritating though it's much more probable that Isabel would have taken it in good part but strange to say the words that Madam Mel actually used caused her the first feeling of displeasure I know this is a lie to excite that's more than I intended she answered correctly I'm under no obligation that I know of to charm Miss Rosemont Madam Mel perceptibly flashed but we know it was not a rabbit to retract my dear child, I didn't speak for him, poor man I spoke for yourself it's not of course a question as to his liking you it matters little whatever he likes you or not but I thought you liked him I did, said Isabel honestly but I don't see what matters either everything that concerns you matters to me Madam Mel returned with her weary nobleness especially when at the same time another old friend concerned whatever Isabel obligation may have been to Miss Rosemont it must be admitted that she found them sufficient to later to put to Ralph some recreations about him she thought rough judgment distorted by his trials but she flattered herself she had learnt to make allowance for that do I know him, said her cousin oh yes I know him, not well but on the old enough I've never cultivated his society and he apparently has never found mine indispensable to his happiness who is he, what is he he's a vague unexplained American who has been living this 30 years or less in Italy why do I call him unexplain it only as a cover for my ignorance I don't know his antecedent his family, his origin for all I do know he may be a prince in disguise he rather looks like one by the way, like a prince who has advocated in a fit of fastidiousness and has been in state of disgust ever since he used to live in Rome but of the late years he has taken up his abode here I remember hearing him say that Rome has grown vulgar he has a great dread of vulgarity that is special line he hasn't any other that I know of he lives in his income which I suspect of not being vulgarly large he's a poor but honest gentleman that's what he calls himself he married young and lost his wife and I believe he has a daughter he also has a sister who is married to some small count or other of this part I remember meeting her of old she's nicer than he I should think but rather impossible I remember there used to be some stories about her I recommend you to know her but why don't you ask Madame Merle about these people she knows them all much better than I I ask you because I want your opinion as well as hers said Isabel have thick for my opinion if you fall in love with Mr. Osman take care for that not much probably but meanwhile it has a certain importance the more information one has about one the better I don't agree to that it may make them dangerous we know too much about people in this day we hear too much our ears, our mind, our mouth are stuffed with personalities don't mind anything anyone tells you about anyone else judge everyone and everything for yourself that's what I try to do, said Isabel but when you do that people call you conceited you are not to mind them that's precisely my argument not to mind what they say about yourself any more than what they say about your friend or your enemy Isabel considered I think you are right but there are some things I can't help minding for instance when my friends attacked or when I'm a self I'm praised of course you are always at liberty to judge the critic judge people as critics however Ralfa did and you condemn them all I shall see Mr. Osman for myself, said Isabel I promise to pay him a visit to pay him a visit to go and see his view his pictures, his daughter I don't know exactly what Mother Mez to take me she tells me a great many ladies call on him ha, with Mother Mez you may go anywhere the confience, said Ralf she knows no one but the best people Isabel said no more about Mr. Osman but she presently remarked to her cousin that she was not satisfied with this tone about Madam Mez it seems to me you insinuate things about her I don't know what you mean but if you have any ground for disliking her I think you should either mention them frankly or else say nothing at all Ralfa however resented to church with more apparent earnessness that he commonly used I speak of Madam Mez exactly as I speak to her with an even exaggerated respect exaggerated precisely that's what I complain of I do so because Madam Mez's merit are exaggerated by whom pray by me if so I do her a poor service no no by herself Ha, I protest Isabel Inesie cried if ever there was a woman who made small claims you put your finger on it Ralfa interrupted her modesty is exaggerated she has no business with small claims she has a perfect right to make large ones her merits are large then you contradict yourself her merits are immense she is indescribably blameless a pathlet desert of virtue the only woman I know who never gives one a chance a chance for what? well say to call her a fool she is the only woman I know who has batted one little thought Isabel turned away with impatience I don't understand you you are too paradoxical for my plain mind let me explain when I say she exaggerates I don't mean in the vulgar sense that she both of estates give to find an account of herself I mean literally that she pushes the search for perfection too far that her merits are in themselves overstrained she is too good, too kind too clever, too learned too accomplished, too everything she is too complete in a word I confess to you that she acts on my nerves and I feel about her a good deal as intensely human Athenian felt about Aristides the just Isabel looked hard at her cousin by the mocking spirit if it larked in his words failed it on this occasion to peep from his face do you wish Madame Mer to be banished? by no means she is much too good company I delight in Madame Mer Sadralf Tashed simply you are very odious sir Isabel exclaimed and then she asked him if he knew anything that was not the honor of her brilliant friend nothing whatever don't you see that just what I mean on the character of everyone else you may find some little black speck if I were to take half an hour to eat Sunday I have no doubt I should be able to find one on yours for my own of course I am spotted like a leopard but on Madame Mer nothing, nothing, nothing that's just what I think Sadralf Tashed with a toss over her head that is why I like her so much she is a capital person for you to know since you wish to see the world I don't have a better guide I suppose you mean by that she is worldly worldly? no Sadralf she is the grit round world itself is that certainly not as Isabel for the moment took it into her head to believe being a refinement of Malis in him to say that he delighted in Madame Mer Ralph Tashed took his refreshment wherever he could find it and he would not have forgiven himself if he had been left woolly guided by such a mistress of the social art there are deep lying sympathies and antipathies and it may have been that in spite of their ministered justice she enjoyed at his hand her absence from his mother's house would now have made life barren to him but Ralph Tashed had learned more or less inscrutably to attend and there could be nothing so sustained to attend to as the general performance of Madame Mer he let her stand with an opportuneness she herself could not have surpassed there were moments when he felt almost sorry for her and this, other enough were the moments when his kindness was least demonstrative he was sure she had been yearningly ambitious and that what she had visibly accomplished was far below her secret measure she had got herself into perfect training but had won none of the prizes she was always playing Madame Mer the widows of a Swiss negotiation with a small income and a large acquaintance who stayed with people a great deal and was almost as universally liked as some new volume of the smooth to other the contrast between this position and any one of some half dozen others that is supposed to have at various moments engaged her hope that an element of the tragical his mother thought he got on beautifully with their genial guest to Mrs. Tachette's sense two person would also largely into ingenious theory of conduct that is of their own would have much in common he had given due consideration to visibly intimacy with her eminent friend having long since made up his mind that he could not without opposition keep his cousin to himself and he made the best of it as he had done the worst things he believed it would take care of itself it wouldn't last forever of these two superior person knew the other as well as she supposed and when each had made an important discovery or two there would be if not a rapture at least a relaxation meanwhile it was quite willing to admit that the conversation of the elder lady was an advantage to the young who had a great deal to learn it would doubtless learn it better from mother than from some other instructors of the young it was not probable that he is able would be in chart and of chapter 23