Pansy was not in the first of the rooms, a large apartment with a concave ceiling and walls covered with old red damask; it was here Mrs. Osmond usually sat—though she was not in her most customary place to-night—and that a circle of more especial intimates gathered about the fire. The room was flushed with subdued, diffused brightness; it contained the larger things and—almost always—an odour of flowers. Pansy on this occasion was presumably in the next of the series, the resort of younger visitors, where tea was served. Osmond stood before the chimney, leaning back with his hands behind him; he had one foot up and was warming the sole. Half a dozen persons, scattered near him, were talking together; but he was not in the conversation; his eyes had an expression, frequent with them, that seemed to represent them as engaged with objects more worth their while than the appearances actually thrust upon them. Rosier, coming in unannounced, failed to attract his attention; but the young man, who was very punctilious, though he was even exceptionally conscious that it was the wife, not the husband, he had come to see, went up to shake hands with him. Osmond put out his left hand, without changing his attitude.
“How d’ye do? My wife’s somewhere about.”
“Never fear; I shall find her,” said Rosier cheerfully.
Osmond, however, took him in; he had never in his life felt himself so efficiently looked at. “Madame Merle has told him, and he doesn’t like it,” he privately reasoned. He had hoped Madame Merle would be there, but she was not in sight; perhaps she was in one of the other rooms or would come later. He had never especially delighted in Gilbert Osmond, having a fancy he gave himself airs. But Rosier was not quickly resentful, and where politeness was concerned had ever a strong need of being quite in the right. He looked round him and smiled, all without help, and then in a moment, “I saw a jolly good piece of Capo di Monte to-day,” he said.
Osmond answered nothing at first; but presently, while he warmed his boot-sole, “I don’t care a fig for Capo di Monte!” he returned.
“I hope you’re not losing your interest?”
“In old pots and plates? Yes, I’m losing my interest.”
Rosier for an instant forgot the delicacy of his position. “You’re not thinking of parting with a—a piece or two?”
“No, I’m not thinking of parting with anything at all, Mr. Rosier,” said Osmond, with his eyes still on the eyes of his visitor.
“Ah, you want to keep, but not to add,” Rosier remarked brightly.
“Exactly. I’ve nothing I wish to match.”
Poor Rosier was aware he had blushed; he was distressed at his want of assurance. “Ah, well, I have!” was all he could murmur; and he knew his murmur was partly lost as he turned away. He took his course to the adjoining room and met Mrs. Osmond coming out of the deep doorway. She was dressed in black velvet; she looked high and splendid, as he had said, and yet oh so radiantly gentle! We know what Mr. Rosier thought of her and the terms in which, to Madame Merle, he had expressed his admiration. Like his appreciation of her dear little stepdaughter it was based partly on his eye for decorative character, his instinct for authenticity; but also on a sense for uncatalogued values, for that secret of a “lustre” beyond any recorded losing or rediscovering, which his devotion to brittle wares had still not disqualified him to recognise. Mrs. Osmond, at present, might well have gratified such tastes. The years had touched her only to enrich her; the flower of her youth had not faded, it only hung more quietly on its stem. She had lost something of that quick eagerness to which her husband had privately taken exception—she had more the air of being able to wait. Now, at all events, framed in the gilded doorway, she struck our young man as the picture of a gracious lady. “You see I’m very regular,” he said. “But who should be if I’m not?”
“Yes, I’ve known you longer than any one here. But we mustn’t indulge in tender reminiscences. I want to introduce you to a young lady.”
“Ah, please, what young lady?” Rosier was immensely obliging; but this was not what he had come for.
“She sits there by the fire in pink and has no one to speak to.” Rosier hesitated a moment. “Can’t Mr. Osmond speak to her? He’s within six feet of her.”
Mrs. Osmond also hesitated. “She’s not very lively, and he doesn’t like dull people.”
“But she’s good enough for me? Ah now, that’s hard!”
“I only mean that you’ve ideas for two. And then you’re so obliging.”
“No, he’s not—to me.” And Mrs. Osmond vaguely smiled.
“That’s a sign he should be doubly so to other women.
“So I tell him,” she said, still smiling.
“You see I want some tea,” Rosier went on, looking wistfully beyond.
“That’s perfect. Go and give some to my young lady.”
“Very good; but after that I’ll abandon her to her fate. The simple truth is I’m dying to have a little talk with Miss Osmond.”
“Ah,” said Isabel, turning away, “I can’t help you there!”
Five minutes later, while he handed a tea-cup to the damsel in pink, whom he had conducted into the other room, he wondered whether, in making to Mrs. Osmond the profession I have just quoted, he had broken the spirit of his promise to Madame Merle. Such a question was capable of occupying this young man’s mind for a considerable time. At last, however, he became—comparatively speaking—reckless; he cared little what promises he might break. The fate to which he had threatened to abandon the damsel in pink proved to be none so terrible; for Pansy Osmond, who had given him the tea for his companion—Pansy was as fond as ever of making tea—presently came and talked to her. Into this mild colloquy Edward Rosier entered little; he sat by moodily, watching his small sweetheart. If we look at her now through his eyes we shall at first not see much to remind us of the obedient little girl who, at Florence, three years before, was sent to walk short distances in the Cascine while her father and Miss Archer talked together of matters sacred to elder people. But after a moment we shall perceive that if at nineteen Pansy has become a young lady she doesn’t really fill out the part; that if she has grown very pretty she lacks in a deplorable degree the quality known and esteemed in the appearance of females as style; and that if she is dressed with great freshness she wears her smart attire with an undisguised appearance of saving it—very much as if it were lent her for the occasion. Edward Rosier, it would seem, would have been just the man to note these defects; and in point of fact there was not a quality of this young lady, of any sort, that he had not noted. Only he called her qualities by names of his own—some of which indeed were happy enough. “No, she’s unique—she’s absolutely unique,” he used to say to himself; and you may be sure that not for an instant would he have admitted to you that she was wanting in style. Style? Why, she had the style of a little princess; if you couldn’t see it you had no eye. It was not modern, it was not conscious, it would produce no impression in Broadway; the small, serious damsel, in her stiff little dress, only looked like an Infanta of Velasquez. This was enough for Edward Rosier, who thought her delightfully old-fashioned. Her anxious eyes, her charming lips, her slip of a figure, were as touching as a childish prayer. He had now an acute desire to know just to what point she liked him—a desire which made him fidget as he sat in his chair. It made him feel hot, so that he had to pat his forehead with his handkerchief; he had never been so uncomfortable. She was such a perfect jeune fille, and one couldn’t make of a jeune fille the enquiry requisite for throwing light on such a point. A jeune fille was what Rosier had always dreamed of—a jeune fille who should yet not be French, for he had felt that this nationality would complicate the question. He was sure Pansy had never looked at a newspaper and that, in the way of novels, if she had read Sir Walter Scott it was the very most. An American jeune fille—what could be better than that? She would be frank and gay, and yet would not have walked alone, nor have received letters from men, nor have been taken to the theatre to see the comedy of manners. Rosier could not deny that, as the matter stood, it would be a breach of hospitality to appeal directly to this unsophisticated creature; but he was now in imminent danger of asking himself if hospitality were the most sacred thing in the world. Was not the sentiment that he entertained for Miss Osmond of infinitely greater importance? Of greater importance to him—yes; but not probably to the master of the house. There was one comfort; even if this gentleman had been placed on his guard by Madame Merle he would not have extended the warning to Pansy; it would not have been part of his policy to let her know that a prepossessing young man was in love with her. But he was in love with her, the prepossessing young man; and all these restrictions of circumstance had ended by irritating him. What had Gilbert Osmond meant by giving him two fingers of his left hand? If Osmond was rude, surely he himself might be bold. He felt extremely bold after the dull girl in so vain a disguise of rose-colour had responded to the call of her mother, who came in to say, with a significant simper at Rosier, that she must carry her off to other triumphs. The mother and daughter departed together, and now it depended only upon him that he should be virtually alone with Pansy. He had never been alone with her before; he had never been alone with a jeune fille. It was a great moment; poor Rosier began to pat his forehead again. There was another room beyond the one in which they stood—a small room that had been thrown open and lighted, but that, the company not being numerous, had remained empty all the evening. It was empty yet; it was upholstered in pale yellow; there were several lamps; through the open door it looked the very temple of authorised love. Rosier gazed a moment through this aperture; he was afraid that Pansy would run away, and felt almost capable of stretching out a hand to detain her. But she lingered where the other maiden had left them, making no motion to join a knot of visitors on the far side of the room. For a little it occurred to him that she was frightened—too frightened perhaps to move; but a second glance assured him she was not, and he then reflected that she was too innocent indeed for that. After a supreme hesitation he asked her if he might go and look at the yellow room, which seemed so attractive yet so virginal. He had been there already with Osmond, to inspect the furniture, which was of the First French Empire, and especially to admire the clock (which he didn’t really admire), an immense classic structure of that period. He therefore felt that he had now begun to manoeuvre.
“Certainly, you may go,” said Pansy; “and if you like I’ll show you.” She was not in the least frightened.
“That’s just what I hoped you’d say; you’re so very kind,” Rosier murmured.
They went in together; Rosier really thought the room very ugly, and it seemed cold. The same idea appeared to have struck Pansy. “It’s not for winter evenings; it’s more for summer,” she said. “It’s papa’s taste; he has so much.”
He had a good deal, Rosier thought; but some of it was very bad. He looked about him; he hardly knew what to say in such a situation. “Doesn’t Mrs. Osmond care how her rooms are done? Has she no taste?” he asked.
“Oh yes, a great deal; but it’s more for literature,” said Pansy—“and for conversation. But papa cares also for those things. I think he knows everything.”
Rosier was silent a little. “There’s one thing I’m sure he knows!” he broke out presently. “He knows that when I come here it’s, with all respect to him, with all respect to Mrs. Osmond, who’s so charming—it’s really,” said the young man, “to see you!”
“To see me?” And Pansy raised her vaguely troubled eyes.
“To see you; that’s what I come for,” Rosier repeated, feeling the intoxication of a rupture with authority.
Pansy stood looking at him, simply, intently, openly; a blush was not needed to make her face more modest. “I thought it was for that.”
“And it was not disagreeable to you?”
“I couldn’t tell; I didn’t know. You never told me,” said Pansy.
“I was afraid of offending you.”
“You don’t offend me,” the young girl murmured, smiling as if an angel had kissed her.
“You like me then, Pansy?” Rosier asked very gently, feeling very happy.
“Yes—I like you.”
They had walked to the chimney-piece where the big cold Empire clock was perched; they were well within the room and beyond observation from without. The tone in which she had said these four words seemed to him the very breath of nature, and his only answer could be to take her hand and hold it a moment. Then he raised it to his lips. She submitted, still with her pure, trusting smile, in which there was something ineffably passive. She liked him—she had liked him all the while; now anything might happen! She was ready—she had been ready always, waiting for him to speak. If he had not spoken she would have waited for ever; but when the word came she dropped like the peach from the shaken tree. Rosier felt that if he should draw her toward him and hold her to his heart she would submit without a murmur, would rest there without a question. It was true that this would be a rash experiment in a yellow Empire salottino. She had known it was for her he came, and yet like what a perfect little lady she had carried it off!
“You’re very dear to me,” he murmured, trying to believe that there was after all such a thing as hospitality.
She looked a moment at her hand, where he had kissed it. “Did you say papa knows?”
“You told me just now he knows everything.”
“I think you must make sure,” said Pansy.
“Ah, my dear, when once I’m sure of you!” Rosier murmured in her ear; whereupon she turned back to the other rooms with a little air of consistency which seemed to imply that their appeal should be immediate.
The other rooms meanwhile had become conscious of the arrival of Madame Merle, who, wherever she went, produced an impression when she entered. How she did it the most attentive spectator could not have told you, for she neither spoke loud, nor laughed profusely, nor moved rapidly, nor dressed with splendour, nor appealed in any appreciable manner to the audience. Large, fair, smiling, serene, there was something in her very tranquillity that diffused itself, and when people looked round it was because of a sudden quiet. On this occasion she had done the quietest thing she could do; after embracing Mrs. Osmond, which was more striking, she had sat down on a small sofa to commune with the master of the house. There was a brief exchange of commonplaces between these two—they always paid, in public, a certain formal tribute to the commonplace—and then Madame Merle, whose eyes had been wandering, asked if little Mr. Rosier had come this evening.
“He came nearly an hour ago—but he has disappeared,” Osmond said.
“And where’s Pansy?”
“In the other room. There are several people there.”
“He’s probably among them,” said Madame Merle.
“Do you wish to see him?” Osmond asked in a provokingly pointless tone.
Madame Merle looked at him a moment; she knew each of his tones to the eighth of a note. “Yes, I should like to say to him that I’ve told you what he wants, and that it interests you but feebly.”
“Don’t tell him that. He’ll try to interest me more—which is exactly what I don’t want. Tell him I hate his proposal.”
“But you don’t hate it.”
“It doesn’t signify; I don’t love it. I let him see that, myself, this evening; I was rude to him on purpose. That sort of thing’s a great bore. There’s no hurry.”
“I’ll tell him that you’ll take time and think it over.”
“No, don’t do that. He’ll hang on.”
“If I discourage him he’ll do the same.”
“Yes, but in the one case he’ll try to talk and explain—which would be exceedingly tiresome. In the other he’ll probably hold his tongue and go in for some deeper game. That will leave me quiet. I hate talking with a donkey.”
“Is that what you call poor Mr. Rosier?”
“Oh, he’s a nuisance—with his eternal majolica.”
Madame Merle dropped her eyes; she had a faint smile. “He’s a gentleman, he has a charming temper; and, after all, an income of forty thousand francs!”
“It’s misery—‘genteel’ misery,” Osmond broke in. “It’s not what I’ve dreamed of for Pansy.”
“Very good then. He has promised me not to speak to her.”
“Do you believe him?” Osmond asked absentmindedly.
“Perfectly. Pansy has thought a great deal about him; but I don’t suppose you consider that that matters.”
“I don’t consider it matters at all; but neither do I believe she has thought of him.”
“That opinion’s more convenient,” said Madame Merle quietly.
“Has she told you she’s in love with him?”
“For what do you take her? And for what do you take me?” Madame Merle added in a moment.
Osmond had raised his foot and was resting his slim ankle on the other knee; he clasped his ankle in his hand familiarly—his long, fine forefinger and thumb could make a ring for it—and gazed a while before him. “This kind of thing doesn’t find me unprepared. It’s what I educated her for. It was all for this—that when such a case should come up she should do what I prefer.”
“I’m not afraid that she’ll not do it.”
“Well then, where’s the hitch?”
“I don’t see any. But, all the same, I recommend you not to get rid of Mr. Rosier. Keep him on hand; he may be useful.”
“I can’t keep him. Keep him yourself.”
“Very good; I’ll put him into a corner and allow him so much a day.” Madame Merle had, for the most part, while they talked, been glancing about her; it was her habit in this situation, just as it was her habit to interpose a good many blank-looking pauses. A long drop followed the last words I have quoted; and before it had ended she saw Pansy come out of the adjoining room, followed by Edward Rosier. The girl advanced a few steps and then stopped and stood looking at Madame Merle and at her father.
“He has spoken to her,” Madame Merle went on to Osmond.
Her companion never turned his head. “So much for your belief in his promises. He ought to be horsewhipped.”
“He intends to confess, poor little man!”
Osmond got up; he had now taken a sharp look at his daughter. “It doesn’t matter,” he murmured, turning away.
Pansy after a moment came up to Madame Merle with her little manner of unfamiliar politeness. This lady’s reception of her was not more intimate; she simply, as she rose from the sofa, gave her a friendly smile.
“You’re very late,” the young creature gently said.
“My dear child, I’m never later than I intend to be.”
Madame Merle had not got up to be gracious to Pansy; she moved toward Edward Rosier. He came to meet her and, very quickly, as if to get it off his mind, “I’ve spoken to her!” he whispered.
“I know it, Mr. Rosier.”
“Did she tell you?”
“Yes, she told me. Behave properly for the rest of the evening, and come and see me to-morrow at a quarter past five.” She was severe, and in the manner in which she turned her back to him there was a degree of contempt which caused him to mutter a decent imprecation.
He had no intention of speaking to Osmond; it was neither the time nor the place. But he instinctively wandered toward Isabel, who sat talking with an old lady. He sat down on the other side of her; the old lady was Italian, and Rosier took for granted she understood no English. “You said just now you wouldn’t help me,” he began to Mrs. Osmond. “Perhaps you’ll feel differently when you know—when you know—!”
Isabel met his hesitation. “When I know what?”
“That she’s all right.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Well, that we’ve come to an understanding.”
“She’s all wrong,” said Isabel. “It won’t do.”
Poor Rosier gazed at her half-pleadingly, half-angrily; a sudden flush testified to his sense of injury. “I’ve never been treated so,” he said. “What is there against me, after all? That’s not the way I’m usually considered. I could have married twenty times.”
“It’s a pity you didn’t. I don’t mean twenty times, but once, comfortably,” Isabel added, smiling kindly. “You’re not rich enough for Pansy.”
“She doesn’t care a straw for one’s money.”
“No, but her father does.”
“Ah yes, he has proved that!” cried the young man.
Isabel got up, turning away from him, leaving her old lady without ceremony; and he occupied himself for the next ten minutes in pretending to look at Gilbert Osmond’s collection of miniatures, which were neatly arranged on a series of small velvet screens. But he looked without seeing; his cheek burned; he was too full of his sense of injury. It was certain that he had never been treated that way before; he was not used to being thought not good enough. He knew how good he was, and if such a fallacy had not been so pernicious he could have laughed at it. He searched again for Pansy, but she had disappeared, and his main desire was now to get out of the house. Before doing so he spoke once more to Isabel; it was not agreeable to him to reflect that he had just said a rude thing to her—the only point that would now justify a low view of him.
“I referred to Mr. Osmond as I shouldn’t have done, a while ago,” he began. “But you must remember my situation.”
“I don’t remember what you said,” she answered coldly.
“Ah, you’re offended, and now you’ll never help me.”
She was silent an instant, and then with a change of tone: “It’s not that I won’t; I simply can’t!” Her manner was almost passionate.
“If you could, just a little, I’d never again speak of your husband save as an angel.”
“The inducement’s great,” said Isabel gravely—inscrutably, as he afterwards, to himself, called it; and she gave him, straight in the eyes, a look which was also inscrutable. It made him remember somehow that he had known her as a child; and yet it was keener than he liked, and he took himself off.
He went to see Madame Merle on the morrow, and to his surprise she let him off rather easily. But she made him promise that he would stop there till something should have been decided. Mr. Osmond had had higher expectations; it was very true that as he had no intention of giving his daughter a portion such expectations were open to criticism or even, if one would, to ridicule. But she would advise Mr. Rosier not to take that tone; if he would possess his soul in patience he might arrive at his felicity. Mr. Osmond was not favourable to his suit, but it wouldn’t be a miracle if he should gradually come round. Pansy would never defy her father, he might depend on that; so nothing was to be gained by precipitation. Mr. Osmond needed to accustom his mind to an offer of a sort that he had not hitherto entertained, and this result must come of itself—it was useless to try to force it. Rosier remarked that his own situation would be in the meanwhile the most uncomfortable in the world, and Madame Merle assured him that she felt for him. But, as she justly declared, one couldn’t have everything one wanted; she had learned that lesson for herself. There would be no use in his writing to Gilbert Osmond, who had charged her to tell him as much. He wished the matter dropped for a few weeks and would himself write when he should have anything to communicate that it might please Mr. Rosier to hear.
“He doesn’t like your having spoken to Pansy, Ah, he doesn’t like it at all,” said Madame Merle.
“I’m perfectly willing to give him a chance to tell me so!”
“If you do that he’ll tell you more than you care to hear. Go to the house, for the next month, as little as possible, and leave the rest to me.”
“As little as possible? Who’s to measure the possibility?”
“Let me measure it. Go on Thursday evenings with the rest of the world, but don’t go at all at odd times, and don’t fret about Pansy. I’ll see that she understands everything. She’s a calm little nature; she’ll take it quietly.”
Edward Rosier fretted about Pansy a good deal, but he did as he was advised, and awaited another Thursday evening before returning to Palazzo Roccanera. There had been a party at dinner, so that though he went early the company was already tolerably numerous. Osmond, as usual, was in the first room, near the fire, staring straight at the door, so that, not to be distinctly uncivil, Rosier had to go and speak to him.
“I’m glad that you can take a hint,” Pansy’s father said, slightly closing his keen, conscious eyes.
“I take no hints. But I took a message, as I supposed it to be.”
“You took it? Where did you take it?”
It seemed to poor Rosier he was being insulted, and he waited a moment, asking himself how much a true lover ought to submit to. “Madame Merle gave me, as I understood it, a message from you—to the effect that you declined to give me the opportunity I desire, the opportunity to explain my wishes to you.” And he flattered himself he spoke rather sternly.
“I don’t see what Madame Merle has to do with it. Why did you apply to Madame Merle?”
“I asked her for an opinion—for nothing more. I did so because she had seemed to me to know you very well.”
“She doesn’t know me so well as she thinks,” said Osmond.
“I’m sorry for that, because she has given me some little ground for hope.”
Osmond stared into the fire a moment. “I set a great price on my daughter.”
“You can’t set a higher one than I do. Don’t I prove it by wishing to marry her?”
“I wish to marry her very well,” Osmond went on with a dry impertinence which, in another mood, poor Rosier would have admired.
“Of course I pretend she’d marry well in marrying me. She couldn’t marry a man who loves her more—or whom, I may venture to add, she loves more.”
“I’m not bound to accept your theories as to whom my daughter loves”—and Osmond looked up with a quick, cold smile.
“I’m not theorising. Your daughter has spoken.”
“Not to me,” Osmond continued, now bending forward a little and dropping his eyes to his boot-toes.
“I have her promise, sir!” cried Rosier with the sharpness of exasperation.
As their voices had been pitched very low before, such a note attracted some attention from the company. Osmond waited till this little movement had subsided; then he said, all undisturbed: “I think she has no recollection of having given it.”
They had been standing with their faces to the fire, and after he had uttered these last words the master of the house turned round again to the room. Before Rosier had time to reply he perceived that a gentleman—a stranger—had just come in, unannounced, according to the Roman custom, and was about to present himself to his host. The latter smiled blandly, but somewhat blankly; the visitor had a handsome face and a large, fair beard, and was evidently an Englishman.
“You apparently don’t recognise me,” he said with a smile that expressed more than Osmond’s.
“Ah yes, now I do. I expected so little to see you.”
Rosier departed and went in direct pursuit of Pansy. He sought her, as usual, in the neighbouring room, but he again encountered Mrs. Osmond in his path. He gave his hostess no greeting—he was too righteously indignant, but said to her crudely: “Your husband’s awfully cold-blooded.”
She gave the same mystical smile he had noticed before. “You can’t expect every one to be as hot as yourself.”
“I don’t pretend to be cold, but I’m cool. What has he been doing to his daughter?”
“I’ve no idea.”
“Don’t you take any interest?” Rosier demanded with his sense that she too was irritating.
For a moment she answered nothing; then, “No!” she said abruptly and with a quickened light in her eyes which directly contradicted the word.
“Pardon me if I don’t believe that. Where’s Miss Osmond?”
“In the corner, making tea. Please leave her there.”
Rosier instantly discovered his friend, who had been hidden by intervening groups. He watched her, but her own attention was entirely given to her occupation. “What on earth has he done to her?” he asked again imploringly. “He declares to me she has given me up.”
“She has not given you up,” Isabel said in a low tone and without looking at him.
“Ah, thank you for that! Now I’ll leave her alone as long as you think proper!”
He had hardly spoken when he saw her change colour, and became aware that Osmond was coming toward her accompanied by the gentleman who had just entered. He judged the latter, in spite of the advantage of good looks and evident social experience, a little embarrassed. “Isabel,” said her husband, “I bring you an old friend.”
Mrs. Osmond’s face, though it wore a smile, was, like her old friend’s, not perfectly confident. “I’m very happy to see Lord Warburton,” she said. Rosier turned away and, now that his talk with her had been interrupted, felt absolved from the little pledge he had just taken. He had a quick impression that Mrs. Osmond wouldn’t notice what he did.
Isabel in fact, to do him justice, for some time quite ceased to observe him. She had been startled; she hardly knew if she felt a pleasure or a pain. Lord Warburton, however, now that he was face to face with her, was plainly quite sure of his own sense of the matter; though his grey eyes had still their fine original property of keeping recognition and attestation strictly sincere. He was “heavier” than of yore and looked older; he stood there very solidly and sensibly.
“I suppose you didn’t expect to see me,” he said; “I’ve but just arrived. Literally, I only got here this evening. You see I’ve lost no time in coming to pay you my respects. I knew you were at home on Thursdays.”
“You see the fame of your Thursdays has spread to England,” Osmond remarked to his wife.
“It’s very kind of Lord Warburton to come so soon; we’re greatly flattered,” Isabel said.
“Ah well, it’s better than stopping in one of those horrible inns,” Osmond went on.
“The hotel seems very good; I think it’s the same at which I saw you four years since. You know it was here in Rome that we first met; it’s a long time ago. Do you remember where I bade you good-bye?” his lordship asked of his hostess. “It was in the Capitol, in the first room.”
“I remember that myself,” said Osmond. “I was there at the time.”
“Yes, I remember you there. I was very sorry to leave Rome—so sorry that, somehow or other, it became almost a dismal memory, and I’ve never cared to come back till to-day. But I knew you were living here,” her old friend went on to Isabel, “and I assure you I’ve often thought of you. It must be a charming place to live in,” he added with a look, round him, at her established home, in which she might have caught the dim ghost of his old ruefulness.
“We should have been glad to see you at any time,” Osmond observed with propriety.
“Thank you very much. I haven’t been out of England since then. Till a month ago I really supposed my travels over.”
“I’ve heard of you from time to time,” said Isabel, who had already, with her rare capacity for such inward feats, taken the measure of what meeting him again meant for her.
“I hope you’ve heard no harm. My life has been a remarkably complete blank.”
“Like the good reigns in history,” Osmond suggested. He appeared to think his duties as a host now terminated—he had performed them so conscientiously. Nothing could have been more adequate, more nicely measured, than his courtesy to his wife’s old friend. It was punctilious, it was explicit, it was everything but natural—a deficiency which Lord Warburton, who, himself, had on the whole a good deal of nature, may be supposed to have perceived. “I’ll leave you and Mrs. Osmond together,” he added. “You have reminiscences into which I don’t enter.”
“I’m afraid you lose a good deal!” Lord Warburton called after him, as he moved away, in a tone which perhaps betrayed overmuch an appreciation of his generosity. Then the visitor turned on Isabel the deeper, the deepest, consciousness of his look, which gradually became more serious. “I’m really very glad to see you.”
“It’s very pleasant. You’re very kind.”
“Do you know that you’re changed—a little?”
She just hesitated. “Yes—a good deal.”
“I don’t mean for the worse, of course; and yet how can I say for the better?”
“I think I shall have no scruple in saying that to you,” she bravely returned.
“Ah well, for me—it’s a long time. It would be a pity there shouldn’t be something to show for it.” They sat down and she asked him about his sisters, with other enquiries of a somewhat perfunctory kind. He answered her questions as if they interested him, and in a few moments she saw—or believed she saw—that he would press with less of his whole weight than of yore. Time had breathed upon his heart and, without chilling it, given it a relieved sense of having taken the air. Isabel felt her usual esteem for Time rise at a bound. Her friend’s manner was certainly that of a contented man, one who would rather like people, or like her at least, to know him for such. “There’s something I must tell you without more delay,” he resumed. “I’ve brought Ralph Touchett with me.”
“Brought him with you?” Isabel’s surprise was great.
“He’s at the hotel; he was too tired to come out and has gone to bed.”
“I’ll go to see him,” she immediately said.
“That’s exactly what I hoped you’d do. I had an idea you hadn’t seen much of him since your marriage, that in fact your relations were a—a little more formal. That’s why I hesitated—like an awkward Briton.”
“I’m as fond of Ralph as ever,” Isabel answered. “But why has he come to Rome?” The declaration was very gentle, the question a little sharp.
“Because he’s very far gone, Mrs. Osmond.”
“Rome then is no place for him. I heard from him that he had determined to give up his custom of wintering abroad and to remain in England, indoors, in what he called an artificial climate.”
“Poor fellow, he doesn’t succeed with the artificial! I went to see him three weeks ago, at Gardencourt, and found him thoroughly ill. He has been getting worse every year, and now he has no strength left. He smokes no more cigarettes! He had got up an artificial climate indeed; the house was as hot as Calcutta. Nevertheless he had suddenly taken it into his head to start for Sicily. I didn’t believe in it—neither did the doctors, nor any of his friends. His mother, as I suppose you know, is in America, so there was no one to prevent him. He stuck to his idea that it would be the saving of him to spend the winter at Catania. He said he could take servants and furniture, could make himself comfortable, but in point of fact he hasn’t brought anything. I wanted him at least to go by sea, to save fatigue; but he said he hated the sea and wished to stop at Rome. After that, though I thought it all rubbish, I made up my mind to come with him. I’m acting as—what do you call it in America?—as a kind of moderator. Poor Ralph’s very moderate now. We left England a fortnight ago, and he has been very bad on the way. He can’t keep warm, and the further south we come the more he feels the cold. He has got rather a good man, but I’m afraid he’s beyond human help. I wanted him to take with him some clever fellow—I mean some sharp young doctor; but he wouldn’t hear of it. If you don’t mind my saying so, I think it was a most extraordinary time for Mrs. Touchett to decide on going to America.”
Isabel had listened eagerly; her face was full of pain and wonder. “My aunt does that at fixed periods and lets nothing turn her aside. When the date comes round she starts; I think she’d have started if Ralph had been dying.”
“I sometimes think he is dying,” Lord Warburton said.
Isabel sprang up. “I’ll go to him then now.”
He checked her; he was a little disconcerted at the quick effect of his words. “I don’t mean I thought so to-night. On the contrary, to-day, in the train, he seemed particularly well; the idea of our reaching Rome—he’s very fond of Rome, you know—gave him strength. An hour ago, when I bade him good-night, he told me he was very tired, but very happy. Go to him in the morning; that’s all I mean. I didn’t tell him I was coming here; I didn’t decide to till after we had separated. Then I remembered he had told me you had an evening, and that it was this very Thursday. It occurred to me to come in and tell you he’s here, and let you know you had perhaps better not wait for him to call. I think he said he hadn’t written to you.” There was no need of Isabel’s declaring that she would act upon Lord Warburton’s information; she looked, as she sat there, like a winged creature held back. “Let alone that I wanted to see you for myself,” her visitor gallantly added.
“I don’t understand Ralph’s plan; it seems to me very wild,” she said. “I was glad to think of him between those thick walls at Gardencourt.”
“He was completely alone there; the thick walls were his only company.”
“You went to see him; you’ve been extremely kind.”
“Oh dear, I had nothing to do,” said Lord Warburton.
“We hear, on the contrary, that you’re doing great things. Every one speaks of you as a great statesman, and I’m perpetually seeing your name in the Times, which, by the way, doesn’t appear to hold it in reverence. You’re apparently as wild a radical as ever.”
“I don’t feel nearly so wild; you know the world has come round to me. Touchett and I have kept up a sort of parliamentary debate all the way from London. I tell him he’s the last of the Tories, and he calls me the King of the Goths—says I have, down to the details of my personal appearance, every sign of the brute. So you see there’s life in him yet.”
Isabel had many questions to ask about Ralph, but she abstained from asking them all. She would see for herself on the morrow. She perceived that after a little Lord Warburton would tire of that subject—he had a conception of other possible topics. She was more and more able to say to herself that he had recovered, and, what is more to the point, she was able to say it without bitterness. He had been for her, of old, such an image of urgency, of insistence, of something to be resisted and reasoned with, that his reappearance at first menaced her with a new trouble. But she was now reassured; she could see he only wished to live with her on good terms, that she was to understand he had forgiven her and was incapable of the bad taste of making pointed allusions. This was not a form of revenge, of course; she had no suspicion of his wishing to punish her by an exhibition of disillusionment; she did him the justice to believe it had simply occurred to him that she would now take a good-natured interest in knowing he was resigned. It was the resignation of a healthy, manly nature, in which sentimental wounds could never fester. British politics had cured him; she had known they would. She gave an envious thought to the happier lot of men, who are always free to plunge into the healing waters of action. Lord Warburton of course spoke of the past, but he spoke of it without implications; he even went so far as to allude to their former meeting in Rome as a very jolly time. And he told her he had been immensely interested in hearing of her marriage and that it was a great pleasure for him to make Mr. Osmond’s acquaintance—since he could hardly be said to have made it on the other occasion. He had not written to her at the time of that passage in her history, but he didn’t apologise to her for this. The only thing he implied was that they were old friends, intimate friends. It was very much as an intimate friend that he said to her, suddenly, after a short pause which he had occupied in smiling, as he looked about him, like a person amused, at a provincial entertainment, by some innocent game of guesses—
“Well now, I suppose you’re very happy and all that sort of thing?”
Isabel answered with a quick laugh; the tone of his remark struck her almost as the accent of comedy. “Do you suppose if I were not I’d tell you?”
“Well, I don’t know. I don’t see why not.”
“I do then. Fortunately, however, I’m very happy.”
“You’ve got an awfully good house.”
“Yes, it’s very pleasant. But that’s not my merit—it’s my husband’s.”
“You mean he has arranged it?”
“Yes, it was nothing when we came.”
“He must be very clever.”
“He has a genius for upholstery,” said Isabel.
“There’s a great rage for that sort of thing now. But you must have a taste of your own.”
“I enjoy things when they’re done, but I’ve no ideas. I can never propose anything.”
“Do you mean you accept what others propose?”
“Very willingly, for the most part.”
“That’s a good thing to know. I shall propose to you something.”
“It will be very kind. I must say, however, that I’ve in a few small ways a certain initiative. I should like for instance to introduce you to some of these people.”
“Oh, please don’t; I prefer sitting here. Unless it be to that young lady in the blue dress. She has a charming face.”
“The one talking to the rosy young man? That’s my husband’s daughter.”
“Lucky man, your husband. What a dear little maid!”
“You must make her acquaintance.”
“In a moment—with pleasure. I like looking at her from here.” He ceased to look at her, however, very soon; his eyes constantly reverted to Mrs. Osmond. “Do you know I was wrong just now in saying you had changed?” he presently went on. “You seem to me, after all, very much the same.”
“And yet I find it a great change to be married,” said Isabel with mild gaiety.
“It affects most people more than it has affected you. You see I haven’t gone in for that.”
“It rather surprises me.”
“You ought to understand it, Mrs. Osmond. But I do want to marry,” he added more simply.
“It ought to be very easy,” Isabel said, rising—after which she reflected, with a pang perhaps too visible, that she was hardly the person to say this. It was perhaps because Lord Warburton divined the pang that he generously forbore to call her attention to her not having contributed then to the facility.
Edward Rosier had meanwhile seated himself on an ottoman beside Pansy’s tea-table. He pretended at first to talk to her about trifles, and she asked him who was the new gentleman conversing with her stepmother.
“He’s an English lord,” said Rosier. “I don’t know more.”
“I wonder if he’ll have some tea. The English are so fond of tea.”
“Never mind that; I’ve something particular to say to you.”
“Don’t speak so loud every one will hear,” said Pansy.
“They won’t hear if you continue to look that way: as if your only thought in life was the wish the kettle would boil.”
“It has just been filled; the servants never know!”—and she sighed with the weight of her responsibility.
“Do you know what your father said to me just now? That you didn’t mean what you said a week ago.”
“I don’t mean everything I say. How can a young girl do that? But I mean what I say to you.”
“He told me you had forgotten me.”
“Ah no, I don’t forget,” said Pansy, showing her pretty teeth in a fixed smile.
“Then everything’s just the very same?”
“Ah no, not the very same. Papa has been terribly severe.”
“What has he done to you?”
“He asked me what you had done to me, and I told him everything. Then he forbade me to marry you.”
“You needn’t mind that.”
“Oh yes, I must indeed. I can’t disobey papa.”
“Not for one who loves you as I do, and whom you pretend to love?”
She raised the lid of the tea-pot, gazing into this vessel for a moment; then she dropped six words into its aromatic depths. “I love you just as much.”
“What good will that do me?”
“Ah,” said Pansy, raising her sweet, vague eyes, “I don’t know that.”
“You disappoint me,” groaned poor Rosier.
She was silent a little; she handed a tea-cup to a servant. “Please don’t talk any more.”
“Is this to be all my satisfaction?”
“Papa said I was not to talk with you.”
“Do you sacrifice me like that? Ah, it’s too much!”
“I wish you’d wait a little,” said the girl in a voice just distinct enough to betray a quaver.
“Of course I’ll wait if you’ll give me hope. But you take my life away.”
“I’ll not give you up—oh no!” Pansy went on.
“He’ll try and make you marry some one else.”
“I’ll never do that.”
“What then are we to wait for?”
She hesitated again. “I’ll speak to Mrs. Osmond and she’ll help us.” It was in this manner that she for the most part designated her stepmother.
“She won’t help us much. She’s afraid.”
“Afraid of what?”
“Of your father, I suppose.”
Pansy shook her little head. “She’s not afraid of any one. We must have patience.”
“Ah, that’s an awful word,” Rosier groaned; he was deeply disconcerted. Oblivious of the customs of good society, he dropped his head into his hands and, supporting it with a melancholy grace, sat staring at the carpet. Presently he became aware of a good deal of movement about him and, as he looked up, saw Pansy making a curtsey—it was still her little curtsey of the convent—to the English lord whom Mrs. Osmond had introduced.