Chapter 30 - Page 2

Merle audibly reflected. "I really think
you wish to be kind to the child."

"I wish very much to be kind to her."

"Go and see her then; no one will be the wiser. And tell her I'd
have come if you hadn't. Or rather," Madame Merle added, "DON'T
tell her. She won't care."

As Isabel drove, in the publicity of an open vehicle, along the
winding way which led to Mr. Osmond's hill-top, she wondered what
her friend had meant by no one's being the wiser. Once in a
while, at large intervals, this lady, whose voyaging discretion,
as a general thing, was rather of the open sea than of the risky
channel, dropped a remark of ambiguous quality, struck a note
that sounded false. What cared Isabel Archer for the vulgar
judgements of obscure people? and did Madame Merle suppose that
she was capable of doing a thing at all if it had to be
sneakingly done? Of course not: she must have meant something
else--something which in the press of the hours that preceded her
departure she had not had time to explain. Isabel would return to
this some day; there were sorts of things as to which she liked
to be clear. She heard Pansy strumming at the piano in another
place as she herself was ushered into Mr. Osmond's drawing-room;
the little girl was "practising," and Isabel was pleased to think
she performed this duty with rigour. She immediately came in,
smoothing down her frock, and did the honours of her father's
house with a wide-eyed earnestness of courtesy. Isabel sat there
half an hour, and Pansy rose to the occasion as the small, winged
fairy in the pantomime soars by the aid of the dissimulated wire
--not chattering, but conversing, and showing the same respectful
interest in Isabel's affairs that Isabel was so good as to take
in hers. Isabel wondered at her; she had never had so directly
presented to her nose the white flower of cultivated sweetness.
How well the child had been taught, said our admiring young
woman; how prettily she had been directed and fashioned; and yet
how simple, how natural, how innocent she had been kept! Isabel
was fond, ever, of the question of character and quality, of
sounding, as who should say, the deep personal mystery, and it
had pleased her, up to this time, to be in doubt as to whether
this tender slip were not really all-knowing. Was the extremity
of her candour but the perfection of self-consciousness? Was it
put on to please her father's visitor, or was it the direct
expression of an unspotted nature? The hour that Isabel spent in
Mr. Osmond's beautiful empty, dusky rooms--the windows had been
half-darkened, to keep out the heat, and here and there, through
an easy crevice, the splendid summer day peeped in, lighting a
gleam of faded colour or tarnished